server running out of swap

[paulshendrick]

we have a server running a script every night, and every night our
memory usage jumps after it's run, eventually forcing the machine to
crash when there's no swap space left.
the script calls tar,gzip, postgres db_dumb and vacuumdb, then backs
up the files to a tape.
The memoy leaks are also occuring rarely even without the script being
called, which is the cause of the confusion.
I think it may be postgres leaking memory, but i don't know where.
does anybody have experience of this?

the main memory intensive process on the box is python(it's running zope).
postgres 7.4.5
zope 2.7.5
python 2.3.4
kernel 2.4.20 custom build.

i'd really appreciate any thoughts!

[AndyGreen]

If you run top when the box is creaking and overallocated, does anyone show up as having rather a lot of memory allocated?

If you run slabtop under the same circumstances, what does "Total Size" say?

[bubudiu]

What distro is that? You need to give proper specs of the ram cpu hardare load etc. The info given is skimpy.