Re: cache_mem and squid memory usage correlation

Dear Steve,

> I'm running squid-1.1.5 on BSD/OS 2.1 and I have a question about
> the cache_mem parameter. No matter how low I set this parameter,
> squid's memory usage seems to grow by about 4K for each new request
> and finally levels out after it reaches a VSZ of 22MB.
>
> This parameter seems to have absolutely no effect. Am I missing
> something here, or is this a bug ?
>
The cache_mem parameter only affects the size of the HOT-cache (the
objects Squid holds in RAM).. The main RAM consumer is the index of
the objects in cache.. Squid uses approximately 100-Bytes of RAM for
every object it holds in cache..
When your cache is growing, your memory consumption will rize..

I'm using the next formule to calculate the maximum size of cache_swap.
D = 40 * (M - S - H)
M = The total avaliable RAM
S = The size of the RAM consumed by the system and other system program's
H = The size of the HOT-cache (cache_mem)

For the Utrecht University Cache (a Sun Sparcstation-4 with 160-MByte RAM)
we have a cache_swap size of circa 6-GByte..

Cheers, Henny

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