ps gives error

[Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.]

In article <209 at larry.sal.wisc.edu>, cathy at larry.sal.wisc.edu (Cathy Accettura) writes:
> I am having problems tracking down a problem.  That
> we appear to have every afternoon.  When I try to do
> a ps I get not enough memory.  When I do a df I get
> not enough core.  I don't see anything in crontab that
> is causing the problem.  I can do a pstat but I don't 
> know what I am looking for.
> 
> I need some tools to find out what the problem is.

	You're probably running out of swap space.  If pstat
	will run use it look at how the swap space is being
	used.  The command is pstat -s:

		% psat -s 

		33440k swap configured
        		14056k used (3016k text, 0k smem)
        		19382k free, 4004k wasted, 2k missing
		avail: 33*512k 6*256k 2*128k 5*64k 2*32k 5*16k 230*1k

	The first line is the amount of space configured.  The 2nd
	line is how much is being used (and how much of that is text
	segments and shared memory).  The 3rd line is the amount that
	is available, wasted because of the swap space allocation
	algorithm and "missing".  "Missing" is whatever is left after
	configured - (used + free).  Missing should be small.

	The last line is how the available space is divided up.

	It is very easy for a large program to waste a lot of swap
	space.  You probably need to configure more.

> 
> Cathy Accettura
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
> Space Astronomy Lab

	Alan Rollow
	Digitial Equipment Corp.
	Colorado Springs CO.