What is using (kernel) memory?

mitsos1os

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Hi guys,

We are seeing an increase in memory usage in some of our servers, but this memory seems to be unaccounted by any tool. I am trying to figure out where this memory is being used.

We are currently running an AWS EC2 instance with the following specs: t3.medium instance with 4GB RAM and OS: Debian GNU/Linux 9.5 (stretch) with kernel: 4.9.0-7-amd64.

The problem is that without any application load on the server, there is steady memory usage increase, while at the same time the application memory usage remains stable and the increase is observed in kernel memory usage. However this kernel memory usage does not match the output from different diagnostic tools. We need to find what is using kernel memory.

Here are 2 charts, the 1st showing how the total application memory remains stable, and the 2nd with the zoom level, shows how the memory avaialble decreases without any other metric rising (as application memory shown stable in 1st chart as well):

1 - Overview:
enter image description here

2 - Available memory decrease: enter image description here

More specifically:

Our application memory usage is around 2.7 - 2.8GB as all tools agree (when adding the memory in top or ps aux as well as info in vmstat and /proc/meminfo):

vmstat:

Code:
         3895 M total memory
         3288 M used memory
         2830 M active memory
          102 M inactive memory
          239 M free memory
           14 M buffer memory
          353 M swap cache
            0 M total swap
            0 M used swap
            0 M free swap
      9421426 non-nice user cpu ticks
        33553 nice user cpu ticks
      6918382 system cpu ticks
     77883981 idle cpu ticks
       388912 IO-wait cpu ticks
            0 IRQ cpu ticks
       278102 softirq cpu ticks
      2354770 stolen cpu ticks
    860794765 pages paged in
     53978341 pages paged out
            0 pages swapped in
            0 pages swapped out
    923803588 interrupts
   1521737988 CPU context switches
   1606336490 boot time
      3042098 forks

/proc/meminfo:

Code:
MemTotal:        3989436 kB
MemFree:          244820 kB
MemAvailable:     363728 kB
Buffers:           14724 kB
Cached:           261808 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:          2898128 kB
Inactive:         104688 kB
Active(anon):    2727444 kB
Inactive(anon):     1760 kB
Active(file):     170684 kB
Inactive(file):   102928 kB
Unevictable:           0 kB
Mlocked:               0 kB
SwapTotal:             0 kB
SwapFree:              0 kB
Dirty:              1516 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:       2726340 kB
Mapped:           121384 kB
Shmem:              2920 kB
Slab:             176432 kB
SReclaimable:     100284 kB
SUnreclaim:        76148 kB
KernelStack:       15584 kB
PageTables:        37408 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     1994716 kB
Committed_AS:    8909600 kB
VmallocTotal:   34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed:           0 kB
VmallocChunk:          0 kB
HardwareCorrupted:     0 kB
AnonHugePages:      2048 kB
ShmemHugePages:        0 kB
ShmemPmdMapped:        0 kB
HugePages_Total:       0
HugePages_Free:        0
HugePages_Rsvd:        0
HugePages_Surp:        0
Hugepagesize:       2048 kB
DirectMap4k:     1523688 kB
DirectMap2M:     2609152 kB
DirectMap1G:           0 kB

top:

Code:
top - 11:51:45 up 5 days, 15:16,  1 user,  load average: 0.36, 0.56, 0.78
Tasks: 177 total,   1 running, 176 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  9.7 us,  7.1 sy,  0.0 ni, 80.1 id,  0.4 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.3 si,  2.4 st
KiB Mem :  3989436 total,   244380 free,  3368236 used,   376820 buff/cache
KiB Swap:        0 total,        0 free,        0 used.   363288 avail Mem 

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND                                                                                                                   
 6781 1001      20   0 1127824 261280  20528 S   0.0  6.5  14:26.31 node                                                                                                                      
 6812 1001      20   0 1123020 256864  20440 S   0.0  6.4   2:16.04 node                                                                                                                      
 6947 1001      20   0 2290368 141248   3672 S   6.2  3.5  60:54.13 beam.smp                                                                                                                  
 6804 1001      20   0  995868 134800  20664 S   0.0  3.4  13:45.90 node                                                                                                                      
 6833 1001      20   0  998772 132872  21552 S   0.0  3.3   2:47.05 node                                                                                                                      
 6793 1001      20   0 1028472 132472  21012 S   0.0  3.3  25:17.82 node                                                                                                                      
 6481 root      20   0 1449660 128308  10276 S   0.0  3.2  28:25.33 fluentd                                                                                                                   
 6773 1001      20   0  990176 127960  21572 S   0.0  3.2   4:45.88 node                                                                                                                      
 8151 root      20   0 1034568 127336   4044 S   0.0  3.2   0:57.51 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 6783 1001      20   0  995804 119816  20416 S   0.0  3.0   1:41.30 node                                                                                                                      
 8149 root      20   0 1029884 115496    708 S   0.0  2.9   0:56.36 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8150 admin     20   0  791532 113856   6144 S   0.0  2.9   0:19.28 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8158 admin     20   0  791816 113608   5740 S   0.0  2.8   0:17.76 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8153 admin     20   0  792644 113456   4508 S   0.0  2.8   0:20.20 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8156 admin     20   0  790936 112940   5948 S   0.0  2.8   0:18.89 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8160 admin     20   0  791248 112604   5180 S   0.0  2.8   0:16.67 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8152 admin     20   0  791240 112584   4512 S   0.0  2.8   0:20.82 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8161 admin     20   0  790360 112560   6144 S   0.0  2.8   0:18.62 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 8159 admin     20   0  790352 111080   4688 S   0.0  2.8   0:22.00 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 4451 root      20   0  946304  75280   4920 S   0.0  1.9  23:19.41 dockerd                                                                                                                   
 2154 root      20   0 1263672  69024  13016 S   0.0  1.7 230:49.47 kubelet                                                                                                                   
 1804 root      20   0 1498348  25504      0 S   0.0  0.6  13:52.07 containerd                                                                                                                
 4599 root      20   0  454100  24132      0 S   0.0  0.6   0:05.73 docker                                                                                                                    
 6413 1001      20   0   28280  18904   3532 S   0.0  0.5  20:10.03 rabbitmq_export                                                                                                           
 7957 admin     20   0   30632  15424    688 S   0.0  0.4   0:08.72 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
 4632 root      20   0  346804  15020   2204 S   0.0  0.4   2:00.88 protokube                                                                                                                 
 7946 root      20   0   30624  14728      0 S   0.0  0.4   0:07.08 gunicorn                                                                                                                  
  190 root      20   0  148448  14012  13464 S   0.0  0.4   7:59.12 systemd-journal                                                                                                           
 6244 1001      20   0  761896  13888   3872 S   0.0  0.3   0:00.40 node                                                                                                                      
 6386 1001      20   0  762468  13792   3840 S   0.0  0.3   0:00.40 node                                                                                                                      
 6282 1001      20   0  761636  13716   3832 S   0.0  0.3   0:00.42 node                                                                                                                      
 5972 1001      20   0  762304  13608   3804 S   0.0  0.3   0:00.39 node                                                                                                                      
 5912 1001      20   0  755608  13400   3828 S   0.0  0.3   0:00.42 node                                                                                                                      
 6170 1001      20   0  755180  13352   3844 S   0.0  0.3   0:00.42 node                                                                                                                      
 6029 1001      20   0  755604  13348   3792 S   0.0  0.3   0:00.42 node                                                                                                                      
 5285 nobody    20   0  717380  10900   4524 S   0.0  0.3   1:27.01 node_exporter                                                                                                             
 5236 root      20   0  139620  10204    312 S   0.0  0.3   0:34.85 kube-proxy                                                                                                                
29897 root      20   0   92828   6468   5536 S   0.0  0.2   0:00.00 sshd                                                                                                                      
    1 root      20   0   57792   5716   3500 S   0.0  0.1   5:10.42 systemd                                                                                                                   
 5769 root      20   0  109100   4584   2192 S   0.0  0.1   0:57.32 containerd-shim                                                                                                           
29904 admin     20   0   19968   3920   3268 S   0.0  0.1   0:00.02 bash                                                                                                                      
29903 admin     20   0   92828   3740   2808 S   0.0  0.1   0:00.03 sshd                                                                                                                      
31515 admin     20   0   42828   3468   2784 R   0.0  0.1   0:00.00 top                                                                                                                       
 7847 root      20   0  107692   3132   1900 S   0.0  0.1   0:02.54 containerd-shim

According to slabtop our justified kernel memory usage is around 160MB. However according to smem and free (which shows the available memory being quite less that it should be) taking into account the correct calculation should be:
Code:
used = app_noncache + kernel_noncache

slabtop:

Code:
 Active / Total Objects (% used)    : 494415 / 704589 (70.2%)
 Active / Total Slabs (% used)      : 42136 / 42159 (99.9%)
 Active / Total Caches (% used)     : 79 / 126 (62.7%)
 Active / Total Size (% used)       : 128233.55K / 162655.41K (78.8%)
 Minimum / Average / Maximum Object : 0.02K / 0.23K / 4096.00K

  OBJS ACTIVE  USE OBJ SIZE  SLABS OBJ/SLAB CACHE SIZE NAME                   
159873  77663   0%    0.19K   7613       21     30452K dentry                 
143468 142879   0%    0.03K   1157      124      4628K kmalloc-32             
 85568  34703   0%    0.06K   1337       64      5348K kmalloc-64             
 34782  34688   0%    0.12K   1023       34      4092K kernfs_node_cache      
 32127  29297   0%    1.05K  10709        3     42836K ext4_inode_cache       
 28735  24699   0%    0.57K   4105        7     16420K inode_cache            
 26460  22407   0%    0.20K   1323       20      5292K vm_area_struct         
 25216  15903   0%    0.06K    394       64      1576K anon_vma_chain         
 22113   6571   0%    0.10K    567       39      2268K buffer_head            
 18080  10004   0%    0.12K    565       32      2260K kmalloc-96             
 16688  11218   0%    0.07K    298       56      1192K anon_vma               
 15264  15002   0%    0.25K    954       16      3816K kmalloc-256            
 12000  11131   0%    0.12K    375       32      1500K kmalloc-node           
 11786   4039   0%    0.05K    142       83       568K ftrace_event_field     
 10332   9984   0%    0.19K    492       21      1968K kmalloc-192            
  9163   6680   0%    0.56K   1309        7      5236K radix_tree_node        
  7776   2972   0%    0.25K    486       16      1944K nf_conntrack           
  3954   3950   0%    2.00K   1977        2      7908K kmalloc-2048           
  3604   3523   0%    1.00K    901        4      3604K kmalloc-1024           
  3399   2716   0%    0.67K    309       11      2472K shmem_inode_cache      
  3213    924   0%    0.19K    153       21       612K cred_jar               
  3066   2726   0%    0.62K    511        6      2044K proc_inode_cache       
  2688   2622   0%    0.19K    128       21       512K kmem_cache             
  2579   2578   0%    4.00K   2579        1     10316K kmalloc-4096           
  2352   2322   0%    0.50K    294        8      1176K kmalloc-512            
  2331    247   0%    0.06K     37       63       148K fs_cache               
  2184   1964   0%    0.07K     39       56       156K Acpi-Operand           
  1870   1762   0%    0.38K    187       10       748K mnt_cache              
  1840   1802   0%    0.09K     40       46       160K trace_event_file       
  1782    541   0%    0.04K     18       99        72K ext4_extent_status     
  1184    686   0%    0.12K     37       32       148K pid                    
  1158    861   0%    0.62K    193        6       772K sock_inode_cache       
  1014   1000   0%    5.38K   1014        1      8112K task_struct            
   728    704   0%    0.14K     26       28       104K ext4_groupinfo_4k      
   702    322   0%    0.10K     18       39        72K blkdev_ioc             
   616    171   0%    0.69K     56       11       448K files_cache            
   490    226   0%    1.06K     70        7       560K signal_cache           
   432     86   0%    0.11K     12       36        48K jbd2_journal_head      
   396    335   0%    0.04K      4       99        16K Acpi-Namespace         
   330    323   0%    2.05K    110        3       880K idr_layer_cache        
   316    163   0%    1.00K     79        4       316K mm_struct              
   294    206   0%    2.06K     98        3       784K sighand_cache          
   286    257   0%    0.36K     26       11       104K blkdev_requests

free -m:

Code:
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           3895        3288         238           2         367         355
Swap:             0           0           0

smem -twk:

Code:
Area                           Used      Cache   Noncache 
firmware/hardware                 0          0          0 
kernel image                      0          0          0 
kernel dynamic memory        866.5M     238.5M     628.0M 
userspace memory               2.7G     122.3M       2.6G 
free memory                  224.0M     224.0M          0 
----------------------------------------------------------
                               3.8G     584.8M       3.2G

We seem to have a rough 450MB unaccounted kernel memory usage. So what is using our kernel memory?
 


We are experiencing a similar situation. Did you find anything interesting since then?

Restarting the VM clears the memory that's unaccounted for, but that's obviously not a real solution.
 
Hi @mmmike. In our setup we had some NodeJS Clients that were connecting to FluentD. It seemed that there was a bug leaving TCP connections open in Node version 13.8.0 > < 14.15.5 which I am not yet 100% sure that was the cause of the problem, but after upgrading NodeJS clients to latest >= 14.15.5 the issue seems gone. FYI the issue was: https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/36620

If you are not using NodeJS in your system then I can't help you further....
 

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