Aide On a Low Memory System

Posted by Jason Mock on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by Jason Mock
Published on 2011-09-21T01:10:43Z Indexed on 2012/03/30 17:43 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 207

Filed under:

I have a Linux server running on a Linode.com VPS, where I'm trying to utilize aide to detect any issues. However, the nightly aide run uses up all of my available memory and swap (512MB RAM / 384MB SWAP).

I've tried adding a script to /etc/cron.daily that would stop/start services using a lot of memory (apache2, mysql) during the aide run. Unfortunately, it seems like aide continued to use every available byte (including the space freed up from apache2 and mysql).

Here's a graph from munin showing what happens when aide runs:

the graph
Note the spike of memory usage, well into swap, when aide runs

Any suggestions on tuning aide to not use so much memory, or is there an alternative to aide that doesn't behave this way?

© Ask Ubuntu or respective owner

Related posts about memory-usage