Linux meminfo very high slab

[tbrinkmann]

Hi,

we face a problem with on of our linux SLES Database Server. The kernel is consuming 80% of the memory for the slab.

SLES 11.3

Linux 3.0.101-0.21-default

MemTotal: 12195516 kB
MemFree: 219028 kB
Slab: 9364632 kB
SReclaimable: 6859668 kB

Normally the SLAB is reclaimable by kernel itself or by command

#>echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

But in our case the kernel do not free the space. So the databases are swapping blocks to the hard disk.

Does anyone see some behavior like this in the past ?

Does this maybe a kernel bug ?

Is it possible to limit the slab ?

Thanks a lot !!!

[system]

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