DreamHost updating their PS memory settings?

by Yaosan on July 31, 2009

You might have noticed it from your own memCron graphs, if not, check the demo out. I believe DreamHost is rolling out a new update that gives extra swap memory to your PS server. This is the reason why you see the jump right after memCron changes your memory setting, signifying more memory is available than what memCron expects.

While memCron might act a little weird because of this change, the good news is if this change is permanent, memCron can operate at a lower margin, and you will be able to save even more money with it! ;) I will update memCron to adapt to the new memory settings as soon as the memory change is confirmed by DreamHost. I might even release a quick fix at the mean time, once I find the time to do it.

BTW, I also notice you can now create a root user for your PS via DreamHost panel.

{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

BassKozz August 1, 2009 at 2:33 am

Dreamhost recently posted on their blog: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/07/31/the-july-mini-roundup/

They mention the root access, but no mention of changes to memory &/or swap memory.
I hope they let us know soon. I can’t live with out my memCron ;)

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Itai August 1, 2009 at 2:21 pm

The memory show in Memcron is not sync with the actual size of the server, so it’s not change as it should be. is this the issue or it’s my server problem?

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Elliot August 1, 2009 at 3:31 pm

I’m seeing the same issue as Itai. Any ideas?

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David M.A. August 1, 2009 at 5:32 pm

I wonder if it’s not that it’s now reporting swap space as actual available memory, making everything just appear to be 450MB larger than it should be.

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BassKozz August 4, 2009 at 10:23 am

Yaosan,
The demo seems to have leveled off at 150Mb. Did you fix memCron or did you disable memCron and force the memory to stay at 150Mb via the DH panel?

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Yaosan August 4, 2009 at 4:51 pm

Yes I fixed memCron to account for the increase of swap memory and I’m doing some testing with it. So far there hasn’t been a spike big enough to trigger the memory change so I’m not exactly sure if it is working properly.

I’ll probably just go ahead and release the patch and get feedback from users who use a lot of memory on their servers.

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Robert Wetzlmayr August 6, 2009 at 2:26 am

I can confirm this changes. They seem to add twice the physical memory as swap, with a 900 MB upper limit for swap.

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Yaosan August 10, 2009 at 9:25 pm

Hi Robert, thanks for confirming the upper swap memory limit of 900MB, that’s what I would have guessed.

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Marty Cannon August 6, 2009 at 11:27 pm

Yaosan,
Thanks for the work you put into this! Could we get a public copy of the changes you made and are testing with? I’ll gladly test it and report back. Thanks!

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BassKozz August 10, 2009 at 10:33 am

I would also be willing to beta test this for you Yaosan.

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Zack August 7, 2009 at 10:21 pm

DreamHost hasn’t announced anything about the change to swap memory yet.

I noticed in the memcron code that there are several places where the swap size is calculated. It might be a good idea to move all of that to one function.

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Yaosan August 10, 2009 at 9:24 pm

I’ve tried to make the calculation as modular as possible starting from version 0.4. I believe there won’t be much benefit to make it any simpler, you sure you aren’t looking at older code? Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.

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Yaosan August 10, 2009 at 9:13 pm

I’ve released a new version of memCron to address the recent swap memory change. Please give it a try and let me know if there’s any issue.

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Jiameng November 17, 2009 at 8:54 am

I currently use memcron for my PS server – ps4815 .

How can I also use memcron for my PS SQL – psmysql12794?

How to setup for the PS SQL and PS server at same time in Crton job?

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