Memory leak on redhat 9.0?

I am currently pretty much dedicating a server to a local auto "scene" for their site and forums, and we have had some problems with the server not being able to handle the load for the site.

The vBulletin forum has a an average of 60-70 people on, with a peak of around 150 every day.

The server in question:
p4 2.4ghz
512mb ram
redhat 9.0
cpanel

I have traced the problem down to being a memory issue. After a reboot, the server runs fine and we can't seem to make the server bog down from over-usage of the forums. Right after a reboot, we also have approx 430mb of free ram in the "buffers/cache" section as displayed with the free command.

However, I have noticed that as days go by, this free amount steadily drops. I would expect this to occur in some capacity as the site gets busier, however this ram is NEVER freed. When this number gets to around 110mb or so is when the server has problems. Mysql starts swapping real bad and tables get locked and the load shoots up to 90+.

I am constantly monitoring top output and the largest amount of ram being used as reported by top is always mysql, but it is only using ~25M at the most.

So either there is a hidden process I have failed to detect, or the kernel or a library is leaking ram.

Our shared webserver running redhat 7.3 does not exibit this problem. Has anyone else run into this with redhat 9.0

Is there anyway to trace this or a way to determine if this is a shared library or the kernel sucking up all the ram?

I was contemplating adding 512mb of ram, which would help, but for how long? There is no point in adding it if all that is going to be eventually sucked up as well.

 

 

 

 

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