This article shows techniques used to trim memory usage on OpenVZ system (with 128 MB RAM burstable). Mostly inspired by this article from lowendbox.com.
Minimal Debian Lenny install (33MB used):
# ps xo vsz,rsz,ucmd VSZ RSZ CMD 1980 692 init 26988 1236 rsyslogd 5272 1024 sshd 2036 792 cron 8016 2916 sshd 4324 1632 bash 3604 804 ps
# free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 128 33 95 0 0 0 -/+ buffers/cache: 33 95 Swap: 0 0 0
After setting “ulimit -s 128″ in /etc/init.d/rc (9MB used):
# ps xo vsz,rsz,ucmd VSZ RSZ CMD 1980 692 init 2744 1188 rsyslogd 5272 1020 sshd 2036 792 cron 8016 2888 sshd 4324 1628 bash 3604 804 ps # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 128 9 118 0 0 0 -/+ buffers/cache: 9 118 Swap: 0 0 0
