Let's say you've got a process like inetd that forks off several copies of the same program, each of which forks several copies of some other program, as follows: Inted -> Program X -> Program Y -> Program Y -> Program X -> Program Y -> Program Y -> Program X -> Program Y -> Program X -> Program Y So at any one time the system process table will show four instances of Program X and eight instances of Program Y. Let's say this is on a Redhat AS 2.1 system running kernel 2.4.9-e.3. What's the total system RAM consumed by these programs? Is it simply the sum of the amount of RAM required by Program X and Program Y multiplied by four and eight respectively? Or is there something more complicated in the way the Linux kernel manages memory? The practical reason for the question is to determine the maximum number of Program X that we can allow (based on the amount of free system RAM) in order to prevent the system from swapping to disk when too many Program Xs are running. Regards, Michael Martinez ISTM/CSREES United States Department of Agriculture --- -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
