I was copying some files from the array to the array.  Very slow choppy copies.  Then nothing.  checked the console and saw the attached picture.

 

Any idea's on the cause? 

 

System:

 

1 Gig Ram

AMD dual core proc

brand new 450 watt power supply  (32 amps on 12 volt rail)

10 drives 

- 8 in the array

- 1 doing nothing

- 1 260 GB as swap

 

The reason I setup the drive as swap is because the kswapd process was frequently using 100% of one core.

 

Running

  - cache dirs

  - untorrent

 

Thanks for any insight.

 

Somethimes when the system runs out of RAM, Some addons can cause the OS to crash, but you have a lot of swap configured so it shouldn't be a problem. Normally when unraid crashes it can be some from of curruption (either software or hardware related), in which RAM can be a possible point of failure (followed by dodgy cabling and possibly your system board). The best thing to start off with would be your cabling or hardware to see if all is seated and connected properly. When your satisfied with the hardware sitting and connected fine, I'd suggest to restart your server, at the bootmenu select the 'memtest' option to do a thorough Memory Test, perhaps as long as possible and several passes to see any issues with your RAM module(s). If RAM comes up file, it could possibily be your USB drive either the FAT file system currupted or the drive itself has gone bad. You should copy the /boot/'config' folder and all it's contents onto a secure location, format the USB drive again using a full format and redo the drive again, copy the new OS files like you were preparing your USB drive for the first time and then copy back your 'config' folder you backed up earlier back onto your newly prepared USB drive, start your server and fingers crossed. Hope this helps.

You don't have enough ram to run cache_dirs and untorrent. something happened with swapping and shrinking the directory cache. There must have been pressure for ram.

 

With all my addons, I start out at 1GB usage. (but I have allot.. and stopped running rtorrent).

 

rtorrent uses allot of ram to begin with to cache internally.

 

Add more ram,  if you are torrenting go right to 4gb.

 

I have crashes recently when doing massive par2 calcs on large directories.

 

The pitfal of initramfs, it never gets swapped out, tmpfs yes, but not initramfs.

 

I've explored moving the root initramfs to tmpfs, but it's a little complicated and requires changing how the bootup works, so that's for another day.

 

 

How many addons/slackware packages do you add?

There are files that must be cleaned up after adding slackware packages.

 

Here is my S10-install-package script just for an idea of what I clean up.

 

#!/bin/bash

if [ "${DEBUG:=0}" -gt 0 ]
   then set -x -v
fi

P=${0##*/}              # basename of program
R=${0%%$P}              # dirname of program
P=${P%.*}               # strip off after last . character
O=${P%_*}               # Operand
D=${P#${O}_}            # Data (last param before _ character)

PKGDIR=${PKGDIR:=/boot/packages}


# Cleans ram drive root directory of unneeded files to save ram
clean_ram_root()
{
  [ -d /usr/man ] && find /usr/man -type f -exec rm {} \;
  [ -d /usr/man ] && find /usr/man -type l -exec rm {} \;
  [ -d /usr/man ] && find /usr/man -type d -empty -depth -exec rmdir {} \;
  [ -d /usr/lib ] && find /usr/lib -type f -name '*.a'   -exec rm {} \;
  [ -d /usr/lib ] && find /usr/lib -type d -empty -depth -exec rmdir {} \;
  [ -d /usr/doc ] && find /usr/doc -type f               -exec rm {} \;
  [ -d /usr/doc ] && find /usr/doc -type d -empty -depth -exec rmdir {} \;
  # [ -d /usr/src ] && find /usr/src -type f               -exec rm {} \;
  # [ -d /usr/src ] && find /usr/src -type d -empty -depth -exec rmdir {} \;
  [ -d /usr/include ] && find /usr/include -type f -exec rm {} \;
  [ -d /usr/include ] && find /usr/include -type d -empty -depth -exec rmdir {} \;
}

for package in ${PKGDIR}/*.tgz $*
do
   PKGB=${package##*/}
   PKGB=${PKGB%.tgz}
   # echo $PKGB
   if [ ! -f /var/log/packages/${PKGB} -o ${FORCE:=0} -gt 0 ]
      then echo "Installing $package"
           installpkg $package 2>&1 | logger -tinstallpkg -plocal7.info -i
           clean_ram_root
      else echo "$package already installed."
   fi
done

clean_ram_root

 

Ram eh? 

 

I forgot to mention that I also use unmenu,  so that also will take some.  But not really any of the packages -- yet.

 

The pitfal of initramfs, it never gets swapped out, tmpfs yes, but not initramfs.

So the swap doesn't help in this case.

 

OK,  It should be easy enough to add some more.  I will do a memtest as well once the parity check is finished.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll post the results..

Swap helps for applications that need ram, but anything written to the root filesystem in ram takes accessible ram away.

 

With only 1GB of ram, torrenting and cache_dirs, the system will choke.

With only 1GB of ram, torrenting and cache_dirs, the system will choke.

It all depends on the number of torrents you're doing at the same time.

On my little 1GB RAM server (no swap) I've never had memory problems.  But I've only had up to 10 torrents running at a time.

On top of what Joe's cache_dirs does, my version also caches all *.jpg files (total ~250MB) to make life easier for my HTPCs.

 

I run a  bunch of stuff on my server -

 

- crashplan

- untorrent / rtorrent

- sabnzbd

- sickbeard

- cache dirs

 

..and probably some other stuff I can't remember.

 

My memory usage, excluding buffers etc is just shy of 500 megs with a few torrents going.

 

System has 4 gigs so plenty of headroom but in theory it would be ok in 1 gig as well.

 

I'd be more inclined to suggest, if it is memory running out, you have either a program dumping output on the ram disk unknowingly or you have a log file running away in size and filling the ram disk.

The prices of RAM these days, you might as well go at lease 2 to even 4GB RAM. Increasing the RAM count gives you more cached or buffered space in RAM, which improves write speeds by a small difference as it is caches contents to be written to your disk(s) in RAM and writes to the disks when possible. Also a benefit if you plan to increase the addons you plan runnin the future too.

My memory usage, excluding buffers etc is just shy of 500 megs with a few torrents going.

 

System has 4 gigs so plenty of headroom but in theory it would be ok in 1 gig as well.

 

I'd be more inclined to suggest, if it is memory running out, you have either a program dumping output on the ram disk unknowingly or you have a log file running away in size and filling the ram disk.

 

rtorrent can use 800mb of ram if you have enough torrents. There is a screen that says memory usage. It also uses a memmap call which maps a file into kernel memory space.

if rtorrent is using a user share rather then a disk directly, this could have a detrimental effect too.

 

The screen capture below showed a failure while the kernel was shrinking the directory cache.

Yet there is a program forcing this cache to stay used.

 

There could be a log running away. in any case, not enough real ram and swap can be used for certain types of ram conditions.

 

I would suggest just going to 4GB if the budget permits.

 

 

Let mem test run all night.  In the morning no errors were reported.

 

I'll probably go to 3 GBs - I only have two slots, so a 2GB stick is the sweet spot.

 

BTW,  only 8 torrents were running.  It is using the stock untorrent install which uses the disk share directly I believe.

 

 

It also uses a memmap call which maps a file into kernel memory space.

 

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

 

In any case, not enough real ram and swap can be used for certain types of ram conditions.

 

Do we have a basis for saying there's not enough real ram?

 

I really don't mean to argue I'm just wary of advising that money is spent when, on the face of it, usage should not strictly (outside buffers etc) be taxing the system.

 

 

It also uses a memmap call which maps a file into kernel memory space.

 

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

 

 

It's a good thing, I'm not sure of how it impacts memory allocation. I know when you run rtorrent it requires extra memory.

 

 

In any case, not enough real ram and swap can be used for certain types of ram conditions.

 

Do we have a basis for saying there's not enough real ram?

 

I really don't mean to argue I'm just wary of advising that money is spent when, on the face of it, usage should not strictly (outside buffers etc) be taxing the system.

 

 

only 8 torrents, each one needs some of the file cached somewhere.

cache_dirs is running preventing directory memory from being reallocated.

 

As said below.

>> The reason I setup the drive as swap is because the kswapd process was frequently using 100% of one core.

 

So if swap helped kswap, then it means the system needs more memory.

It probably would help if rtorrent and untorrent were installed on the disk somewhere and then symlinks were used to map it into the root filesystem.

 

Keep in mind, if rtorrent is installed into root ram, first the space for rtorrent is used in root ram.

Then the program is loaded, now the space for rtorrent is allocated in ram.

Then rtorrent has to use more ram for application space. (this is the biggest part).

with the untorrent portion, every file uses space on root ramdisk, which means the kernel and applications cannot use it.

 

 

>> usage should not strictly (outside buffers etc) be taxing the system.

I agree here. I would propose to shutdown rtorrent and cache_dirs, and do the same copy to see how the system performs.

 

I would say if your system is swapping,  and it's busy swapping, then you do not have enough real memory.