[syslog-ng] Reload does not free up RAM

[Balazs Scheidler]

On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 08:43 -0700, Evan Rempel wrote:
> Balazs Scheidler wrote:
> > On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 09:54 -0700, Evan Rempel wrote:
> >> We have cases where a syslog-ng buffers quite a bit of data (2GB or so) before
> >> it is able to flush the data to the destination. Currently, the only way to "free up" that RAM
> >> is to restart syslog-ng, which means that some log messages are lost during the restart
> >> window.
> >>
> >> I open for discussion the idea that on a reload that syslog-ng flush and free all buffer
> >> space and essentially start from a "just started" state again.
> > 
> > Well, this is currently a PE feature, and BalaBit decided not to open
> > source it this time with 3.0 as that's one of the primary incentives to
> > buy the commercial version.
> > 
> > PE with its persistent disk buffers is saving queue contents upon
> > restart right into the disk buffer file. And also, syslog-ng does not
> > buffer so much data in memory as it first uses the disk.
> 
> The disk buffering offers a lot more than this.
> 
> Persistent buffers around a syslog restart
> Persistent buffers around a system restart (think power outage)
> Much larger buffering (potentially hundreds of GBytes) with minimal
> system impact.
> 
> I would hope that PE version would shrink its disk buffers once they
> are flushed, just like I am hoping that OSE would shrink its RAM buffers
> once they are flushed.
> 
> I don't think that RAM usage AFTER buffers are flushed is much of an
> incentive to purchase the PE. The persistence and size of the buffers
> is the incentive.
> 

E.g. you want to throw away the buffer contents but without restarts?
that should be doable.

-- 
Bazsi