top shows '<swapped>'

[Oliver Fromme]

Ken Chen <ken73.chen at gmail.com> wrote:
 > When I use 'top' command to check my system, some processes are shown like
 > '<php>'. The manual told these processes are swapped out.

Actually it means that they're not mapped into RAM, but in
practice that should be the same.

Just out of cusiosity I grepped the kernel sources for the
PS_INMEM flag and found just two places where it could
possibly be cleared for a process:  during creation of a
child process within the fork() system call, and when a
process is being swapped out.

 > But my problem is .. I don't have swapping device (swapoff -a). Where are
 > they swapped to ?

If you don't plan to configure any swap at all, I recommend
you build a kernel with "options NO_SWAPPING".  It removes
the code for swapping processes from the kernel.

(By the way, I recommend you always configure some swap, even
if you don't intend to use it under normal circumstances,
except maybe on diskless machines.)

Best regards
   Oliver

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Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M.
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