Why is the GL-X3000 using so much RAM?

[aristosv]

I have a GL-X3000. I use it with a 5G SIM card, and I have 37 wireless IoT devices connected on its 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. The only enabled application on it is AdGuard Home. No VPN server, no VPN client, no storage, no parental controls, no dynamic DNS, no tailscale, nothing. Just AdGuard.

And yet the GL-X3000 uses 84% of it’s memory.

That prevents me from enabling additional applications on the router. Even now, after enabling AdGuard, more often than not the whole network becomes slow and the issue is resolved after I restart the router. Before enabling AdGuard the memory usage was 75%. Which is still too high for a router running in a factory default state.

Is there anything that can be done to reduce memory usage?

Tnanks

[bruce]

Hi,

First of all, Linux itself will actively use running memory to maintain efficient system operation:

Flint 3 memory buffer

Linux will always try to use ALL the RAM. That does not mean you will run into any issues if you do not have much free RAM. Only if “Used“ were to fill up all the RAM, you should be worried. Cache and buffers are just Linux trying to improve storage speeds by keeping things in RAM. Restarting because all RAM is used for cache and buffers would actually not help it, because it would then again need load all it decided to buffer and cache in RAM from storage.

In addition, as you enabled ADG, the memory usage of this plugin is large, and if you enable a lot of filter, will take more memory.
Please reduce the filter enabled, or custom add this filter, it already meets most daily needs:
HaGeZi Multi PRO++ mini.

[aristosv]

@bruce

First of all, Linux itself will actively use running memory to maintain efficient system operation:

I understand what you’re saying, but if that were the case then all Linux computers would boot for the first time using 75% (or more) of their RAM. And that’s just not true.

@bruce

In addition, as you enabled ADG, the memory usage of this plugin is large, and if you enable a lot of filter, will take more memory.

AdGuard was enabled, and it’s using it’s default settings. The settings that GL-Inet decided it should use. I didn’t modify any of the filters.

And I don’t have a problem with a 10% increase in memory usage after AdGuard installation. The actual problem is the GL-X3000 75% memory usage from the factory.

[aristosv]

Maybe GL-Inet should consider showing the router’s actual memory usage and not what the system reserves.

[doczenith1]

Your answer is here: https://www.linuxatemyram.com/

[aristosv]

Yes, I get it, Linux reserves ram.

Total RAM: ~491 MB
Used: ~252 MB (≈ 51%)
Free: ~74 MB (≈ 15%)
Buffers/Cache: ~165 MB (≈ 34%)
Available for apps: ~222 MB

What I’m saying is: maybe the GL-X3000 dashboard should report 51% usage, instead of 85% usage.

[packetmonkey]

Buffer/Cache is not free memory though. It can be reclaimed, but it is in fact used memory. Perhaps they should instead show the breakdown itself? Otherwise, 85% is accurate imo.

[leblancexplores]

I’m not convinced this isn’t an actual problem, I use Speedify w/ Tailscale and either there’s a memory leak with Tailscale, this router doesn’t have enough ram or the firmware’s running bloated…

[bruce]

Hello,

Did you encounter Tailscale exiting abnormally?

Is Speedify a self-installed plugin?

In addition to the above applications, are there any other applications enabled?

You can also execute top or opkg update && opkg install htop && htop in the router SSH terminal to check which applications are occupying more memory.