[squid-users] Memory usage and mem_node size

Hi,

I have a Squid 2.5STABLE5 running on Linux (RHL 8.0, 1.5 GB RAM) using
28 GB disk space and serving 5,000 users. It has been in use for more a
year now.

In the last few days, the squid process has grown drastically in size.
Usally, squid has around 400 MB in memory. At some point, it starts
allocating more and more RAM. I've seen it using 1.2 GB RAM and
aggressive paging.

The proxy has 1.8 million objects on disk and 150 MB for the metadata
should be enough.

In cachemgr.cgi / Memory Utilization I can see mem_node growing bigger
and bigger when process size increases.

What's mem_node's purpose? I've seen mem_node allocating 800 MB when the
squid process had 1.2 GB.

Config:
cache_mem 100 MB
maximum_object_size 250 MB
cache_dir diskd /var/spool/squid-standard 28000 16 256

At first, I tried to limit memory pooling:

memory_pools_limit 64 MB

-> no difference

The I tried to switch off pooling:

memory_pools off

-> no difference

I've seen segmentation violations in cache.log:

FATAL: Received Segment Violation...dying.
2004/07/07 10:15:14| storeDirWriteCleanLogs: Starting...
2004/07/07 10:15:31| Starting Squid Cache version 2.5.STABLE5 for
i686-pc-linux-gnu...
2004/07/07 10:15:31| Process ID 17870
2004/07/07 10:15:31| With 8192 file descriptors available

FATAL: Received Segment Violation...dying.
2004/07/07 10:54:46| storeDirWriteCleanLogs: Starting...
2004/07/07 10:54:46| WARNING: Closing open FD 30
2004/07/07 10:54:46| 65536 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:46| 131072 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:46| 196608 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:46| 262144 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:47| 327680 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:47| 393216 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:48| 458752 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:48| 524288 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:48| 589824 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:48| 655360 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:48| 720896 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:49| 786432 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:49| 851968 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:49| 917504 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:49| 983040 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:49| 1048576 entries written so far.
2004/07/07 10:54:53| Starting Squid Cache version 2.5.STABLE5 for
i686-pc-linux-gnu...

FATAL: Received Segment Violation...dying.
2004/07/07 12:37:52| storeDirWriteCleanLogs: Starting...
2004/07/07 12:37:52| WARNING: Closing open FD 30
2004/07/07 12:37:52| 65536 entries written so far.
Received on Wed Jul 07 2004 - 04:55:54 MDT