MySQL memory leak?

Question

I've just installed a brand new server image, and have been finding that MySQL has been consuming a lot of memory despite the fact that nobody's been querying it. I checked free -m to see if it was a matter of cache (à la http://www.linuxatemyram.com/), but it wouldn't appear to be. I've tried restarting the service, and the same amount of memory is used. I am running Ubuntu 12.04. Is this a memory leak? How can I fix this?

# free -m enter image description here

# htop enter image description here

# ps aux enter image description here

I'd appreciate a comment when you downvote. It's unconstructive otherwise. — Joseph Szymborski, Jun 15 '13 at 15:28
Not my down vote but float your mouse over the down arrow - my guess would be one of them is the reason. — user9517, Jun 15 '13 at 15:44

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 15 '13 at 15:37

First: If after a restart of a service, the same amount of memory is used, a memory leak can be ruled out because this results in "loss" of memory over time due to programming bugs where memory isn't freed correctly.

Second: What is your problem? You have a tiny server with 256 MB of RAM, 182 MB of which is still usable. Should you be worried about the "VIRT" number: This has nothing to do with the real amount of memory used, it's a number that includes a lof of stuff, much of which has nothing to do with real memory. Please read man top to learn what the numbers mean before starting to worry.

I was more worried about the %MEM, which according to the `man top` is the percentage of physical memory. All the same, I feel this answers the question nicely. Thank you very much. — Joseph Szymborski, Jun 15 '13 at 15:43

MySQL memory leak?

1 Answers1