Linux Station in QTS 4.2 leaking memory?

[qnasnewbie]

Hello,

I am new to the QNAP community and this is first post! I bought my TS-453A about 8 months ago. I was looking for a NAS storage (this is my first NAS) and a Linux desktop. I could not believe my eyes when I came across the TS-453A model - It has dual OS, Ubuntu which can be used as a desktop as well as having a internal DAC (another very important feature for me). I ended up buying the 4GB RAM model to get a feel of the server & the Ubuntu desktop.

The NAS is working fine so far without any issue. When I login to the Ubuntu desktop soon after the NAS box has been started, the response is quite good. As time goes by the desktop performance degrades and it starts chocking. The only applications running are the Firefox/Chrome browser with multiple tab open and occasionally, VLC. Just to switch between 2 already open tabs in the browser, it takes about 45 sec to a minute. When I restart the NAS box the response becomes good and starts deteriorating as time goes by.

Yesterday, I went ahead and installed 16GB of RAM and tlhe response has been very good. I have started monitoring the RAM usage. After i started the NAS box with the 16GB memory installed and run "top" command in Ubuntu, the free memory available (as per "top") was about 5 GB. Now after about 21 hours of run time, "top" is showing about 300MB of free memory!!! Again, the only apps that are running are the Firefox & Chrome browsers and VLC. The QNAP has used up almost 16 GB of memory!!!! But there so far there has not been a noticeable deterioration of the Ubuntu desktop response time. What is strange is that the QTS Dashboard is reporting only about 26% of RAM used!!! There is a big discrepancy between "top" command numbers and that of the Dashboard.

1) Does those of you who are using Ubuntu in QTS have experienced memory leakage? Is the system really used up all the 16 GB of memory (Please see the screen shot below).
2) Also, can anyone explain the discrepancy in memory usage reported by the Dashboard and the "top" command?

Thank you for any help in this regard.

Dashboard & "top" command numbers screen shot:
http://imgur.com/a/9kHyT

[Toxic17]

Linux uses the ram as needed as a disk cache. it then assigns it back again to the system when required.

http://www.linuxatemyram.com/

also what memory did you assign ubuntu in the Virtual station or container station?

[qnasnewbie]

Thanks Simon for quick reply. I am not that well versed in Linux. I will check out the link that you provided.

I do not think that the Virtual station is involved. But, I'm not sure. I have not made any configuration changes to either the Linux Station (LXC) nor the Container Station. In checking these 2 apps, I was not able to find a way to configure the memory allocation for Ubuntu. When I bought the TS-453A, it came with the Ubuntu 14.04 installed. All I had to do was disable the HD Station and enable the Linux Station. I am not aware that these could be configured. Can you please provide me with pointers to some documentation on how to go about assigning memory to Ubuntu?

Thanks

[kasper58]

Sorry to hijack post trying to get in touch with Simon (Toxic17)

I see in your sig your running CumulusMX and was wondering if you are running it in a LXC.

I'm having problems accessing my weather station from inside the container.

Any pointers would really help.

[hhearnden]

Yes, it leaks. Like a sieve.

I've been running Linux Station on a QNAP TS-453A with 4GB RAM for over 2 years now, and it barely lasts a week before you're forced to reboot. But that's ok, since a reboot is a snap, taking a mere ~10mins, peppered with the dulcet tones of a piezoelectric buzzer.

After a fresh boot, my QNAP's RAM usage sits at about ~30%. After ~7 days, even with no activity, RAM usage will have climbed to 85%, which grinds the system to a halt. That means you have to reboot the QNAP regularly.

Using

Code: Select all

ps -o rss,pid,comm,args | grep '^[ ]*[0-9]\+[ ]\+[0-9]\+' | sort -nr

(on the QNAP itself, not in Ubuntu) to show running processes sorted by resident memory usage, there doesn't appear to be a lone culprit. Rather it's a long-tail of many processes that gradually increase their memory claim.

Here's example output from my machine, with RAM usage at ~63%, showing the top 8 memory consumers using ~500MB RAM:

Code: Select all

 97512 17862 node             ubuntu-hd/node /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/ubuntu-hd/www/build/server.js
 85988  6309 compiz           compiz
 74812 27860 Xorg             /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -core :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch
 51184  9945 mysqld           /usr/local/mariadb/bin/mysqld --defaults-file=/usr/local/mariadb/my-mariadb.cnf --basedir=/usr/local/mariadb --datadir=/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.system/data --plugin-dir=/usr/local/mariadb/lib/plugin --user=admin --default-storage-engine=MyISAM --wait-timeout=2628000 --tmpdir=/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.system/tmp --log-error=/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.system/data/NAS......err --pid-file=/var/lock/mariadb.pid --socket=/tmp/mysql_mediadb.sock --port=3310
 49604  6401 nautilus         nautilus -n
 44172 21703 python2.7        container-station/python2.7 web.pyc
 38352 21642 python2.7        container-station/python2.7 plugins.pyc
 38168 22763 python2.7        container-station/python2.7 docker-monitor.pyc

• That node process doesn't provide constant value, so I don't know why QNAP needs to run it continuously. If you kill it, it just restarts. So 100MB is sacrificed right off the bat.
• compiz and Xorg being at the top I understand, those are fair enough.
• mysqld is forcibly run by QNAP, you can't disable it. Another 50MB permanently sacrificed.
• The python2.7 processes are from Container Station (since Linux Station runs via Container Station, I believe). Those processes leak, and their RSS consumption continuously increases.

A QNAP might still be good value as a NAS, but don't expect to use Linux Station as a PC replacement. It's all tip and no iceberg.

[Trexx]

And I am sure you have opened a helpdesk ticket with Qnap so they can try and resolve the issue.


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