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From: tom@ICASE.EDU (Tom Crockett)
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.andrew
Subject: Re: Help and its memory usage behavior
Message-ID: <8a1H9Qj0_csm00tkcv@icase.edu>
Date: 19 Mar 90 19:26:20 GMT
References: <wa0KaC_753w7M0kUY_@gazelle.att.com>
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Excerpts from info-andrew: 16-Mar-90 Help and its memory usage b.. J
Mukerji@mtgzx.att.com (2317+0)

> Is this a phenomenon peculiar to SPARCs or is it a general memory leak
> bug in Help?
> Either way has anyone got any ideas about how I or someone else ought to
> go about plugging this leak?

I think there is another memory leak in Andrew as well.  Try the
following scenario:

    Sun 4/60, SunOS 4.0.3c
    X11R4 + fixes 1-5 compiled w/ "cc -O"
    Andrew + patches 001-003 compiled w/ "cc"

    (1)  Start Xsun (via xinit or whatever -- I use xdmshell)
    (2) Start console with lots of dynamic stuff in it (load graphs, etc.)
    (3)  Use "pstat -T" to look at memory usage for the Xsun server
    (4) Start xlock and let it run for several hours
    (5)  Look at "pstat -T" again.  The server has grown considerably.

I originally reported this to the MIT X folks, thinking it was a memory
leak in the Xsun server, and their response was along the lines of "You
must be running some crufty old client that's eating server memory". 
This only seems to be a problem while xlock is active.  Without xlock,
server memory usage remains constant.  Overnight, the server will easily
expand by 5 or 6 MB.  In a few days, if I just let things go, I run out
of swap space and lots of nasty things start to happen.

Tom Crockett

ICASE
Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering
M.S. 132C				e-mail:  tom@icase.edu
NASA Langley Research Center		phone:  (804) 864-2182
Hampton,  VA  23665-5225