Memory Leak by Unknown process

[wangringring]

Hi All,
I use FC4 for 2 years. It works pretty good. Until last month (Dec 2007).
I have faced an unknown error which slowly consume my memory from 2GB to less than 64 MB.
That made my running application died.
I tried to find a cause, but I just know that Memory will be consumed much at night.
After I'd checked, When server does crontab job for
1. Scan virus OR
2. backup data by ftp

If Scan virus all path of my computer, it takes time around 10 minutes but it will consume my memory from 1.5GB to <100 MB (by continuous decreasing) and no free up any more.

If backup data by ftp, someday consume but someday didn't !

After problem occured, one way that I can free up memory is to Restart Server by init 6.

Now My problem is WHY didn't memory free up itself ? and WHY just 2 normal processes consume more memory?

Some one please suggest asap !!

Thanks a lot !!

[wangringring]

I'm not sure this information help or not ?

Sometimes after scan my computer (I use Bitdefender program), I found an I/O error.
At my login screen, It'll show "end request: I/O error, dev sda ..."

I really don't know what should I do?

Is it a O/S error or Hardware error ?

Please suggest me !!

[wangringring]

After I read many topic here.
I found it might be a normal action of Fedora (Linux) that alway try to maximizing memory usage.

When I tried 'free' command, I need to see at the line of -/+ buffer/cached instead of memory free.

The memory free of my computer is reduced from 2 GB to 50 MB which is minimum free memory which I saw.
But buffer/cached still remain(free) 1.5 GB and use only <500 MB

This should be out of worry in Memory Lack , isn't it?

Do I understand correctly ?

[bradchaus]

all memory will get consumed ... what isnt necessary for threads is dedicated to cache, thats normal.

as for the disk error ... thats a hardware error ... think about getting a new disk sooner rather than later

[wangringring]

"all memory will get consumed ... what isnt necessary for threads is dedicated to cache, thats normal."

I think, I do understand about memory/cache management of Linux O/S.

But one thing I still wondering.. I've monitored about memory for a few weeks, I found that
some night memory will be consumed quite fast (within 1 minute) at night ( 2am or 3am )
Because in the evening I did restart my server and memory will start at 2 GB.
I monitor again in the morning and found:
Someday, Memory reduced from 2GB to 700 MB (by 1 minute)
Someday, Memory refuced from 2GB to 300 MB (by 1 minute)
It's not sustainable reduction.

I also check my crontab jobs which no any hard job did at night and I'd quit some job that might consume memory.
But it still nothing change (Memory some night still fast reduced).

Is this still normal situation?

Please suggest me !!

[A.Serbinski]

Uh, bitdefender is a windoze program... why are you running that? If you're running that in wine, you probably have a stray wine process running and consuming memory. Wine is horribly buggy. You should NOT be running bitdefender.... or any other windoze virus scanner for that matter.