Why is my web server using up so much virtual memory?

F

freaky

OSXer
I have two Macs that I'm running Apache on for local web development using nothing but plain html/php (no database). One seems normal and the other seems to use waaaaaaay too much virtual memory. The machine that has 3 GBs of RAM currently has these processes running:

Process ID | Process Name | User | % CPU | # Threads | Real Memory | Virtual Memory | Kind

531 httpd _www 0.0 1 1.89 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
536 httpd _www 0.0 1 1.88 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
521 httpd root 0.0 1 9.27 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
535 httpd _www 0.0 1 3.20 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
530 httpd _www 0.0 1 1.86 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
532 httpd _www 0.0 1 1.95 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
534 httpd _www 0.0 1 3.19 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
533 httpd _www 0.0 1 1.88 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
524 httpd _www 0.0 1 1.86 MB 2.59 GB Intel (64 bit)
Click to expand...

The other only has three and each use around 27 MBs of virtual memory.

Can someone tell me how to decrease all of the virtual memory that's being used? I've looked through httpd.conf and couldn't find anything and in php.ini the memory_limit is set to 128 MBs.

NOTE: Not sure if this makes a difference but the machine using up a lot of VM is running Leopard and the other is running Tiger.
 
I suppose that's the difference between Tiger and Leopard - but you seem to have plenty of room for the processes listed.
Is the memory_limit for real memory, or for virtual memory? I would guess real memory? And you aren't even close to 128 MB, with your example list total only about 28 MB. I don't think you would want to limit the virtual memory, as the system uses what it needs dynamically.
Are you experiencing any performance issues?
 
DeltaMac said:
I suppose that's the difference between Tiger and Leopard - but you seem to have plenty of room for the processes listed.
Is the memory_limit for real memory, or for virtual memory? I would guess real memory? And you aren't even close to 128 MB, with your example list total only about 28 MB. I don't think you would want to limit the virtual memory, as the system uses what it needs dynamically.
Are you experiencing any performance issues?
Click to expand...

You may have missed the part where Freaky asks specifically about Virtual Memory.
freaky said:
Can someone tell me how to decrease all of the virtual memory that's being used? I've looked through httpd.conf and couldn't find anything and in php.ini the memory_limit is set to 128 MBs.
Click to expand...
Am chiming in here too as I'm seeing the same behavior, multiple instances of httpd (currently 8) each with over 2.5GB in virtual; seems... odd.

I am running the built in apache, but only for local network usage, nothing intensive.

Not sure if it's causing performance issues or not; hard to say. If it is, it's not very noticeable under normal usage, but perhaps such virtual mem usage is taking away performance from other more hungry apps?

Any one else want to give it a go as to why this happens?
 
Solutions to - what? OS X handling virtual memory? It's supposed to do that.
A 64-bit process could use substantial amounts of virtual memory, I suppose.

Are you having performance issues as a result?
 
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