Subject: rdist eating up VM
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Laine Stump <laine@MorningStar.Com>
List: current-users
Date: 04/12/1997 15:59:58
We have an rdist Distfile that we use to keep all of /usr/local in sync
on 6 P6's running 1.2.1. Today after adding another packet to the master
machine, rdist got down to the last machine, and started spitting out
errors:

  rdist: /usr/local/X/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-pid: out of memory
  rdist: /usr/local/X/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-errors: out of memory
  rdist: /usr/local/lib/krb5kdc: out of memory
  rdist: *~: out of memory
  rdist: *.core: out of memory

(these are files in the "except_pat" list).

So, I ran the command again while running top. It showed that, even when
there were no files left to update, rdist grew by over 10MB for each
target machine, and didn't free that memory when moving on to the
next. By the 6th machine, vm usage was up to 64MB (I've set max vm per
process to 64MB on these machines), and rdist started complaining.

I'd like to know if this problem exists in -current (it's fairly easy to
see if you have several machines - run top while doing rdist of a large
directory). If so, (and if there isn't a pr filed already) I'll file a
pr so it can get fixed.