You can check the utilization of your shared memory pools with the 'ipcs'
command if you've got it installed (part of the SUNWipc package). I have, on
occasion had processes die and not release shared mem properly. You can
whack shared mem segments with the 'ipcrm' command, though I'd suggest
making _sure_ that your whacking dead allocations and not ones in use!

Check the CPID column from an 'ipcs -A' output to find the pid of the
creating process. If it's dead or no longer exists, and there are no
attachments you can safely whack the segment.

I have had problems with Oracle 8 under Solaris 2.6 and 7 (haven't seen this
in a Oracle 9/Solaris 9 combo yet) not releasing shared mem segments on
occasion when we'd shut the DBs down for cold backups, or there'd be a flood
of connections from some poorly designed web application due to a portscan,
DoS attempt, or just dumb programmers.

IMHO, Sun needs to come up with a way so that we can increase the available
shared mem on-the-fly, instead of having to edit it in /etc/system...

-Jeff

On 3/23/05 8:04 AM, "Dave Markham" <dave.markham AT fjserv DOT net> wrote:

> Bobby Williams wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Check for "zombie" processes on the server.
>> 
>> We are seeing processes that are not closed correctly on Masters and
>> Medias that are creating these "zombies".  Do a "ps -ef" and grep for
>> "defunct".
>> 
>> The only way to clear these zombies is a reboot.  These zombie processes
>> will keep the memory allocated and it can't be used by other processes.
>> 
>> 
>> Bobby Williams
>> Senior Systems Engineer
>> GTSI Corp, State and Local, Southeast
>> 4250-A Benton Drive
>> Chattanooga, Tennessee  37406
>> Phone: 423-624-2600
>> Pager: 423-819-3336
>> Fax: 423-629-9669
>> 
<sniped for brevity>
>> 
> No defunct processes, although a log of oracle processes. I wonder if
> some of them are dead and not releasing memory.
> 
> Dave
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-- 
Jeff McCombs                 |                                    NIC, Inc
--
    "Give a person a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach that person
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