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Filesystem Caches

2012-10-29 @ Filesystems

Drop

sync
echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

linuxquestions.org

drop_caches

Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free.

To free pagecache:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

To free dentries and inodes:

echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

To free pagecache, dentries and inodes:

echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

As this is a non-destructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, the user should run `sync’ first.