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AlmaLinux two heavy for 2nd Lightsail tier?
I recently subscribed to a 2nd tier Lightsail instance (1GB memory, 2 vCPU). It was a bit sluggish but it worked alright until I added the EPEL repository and tried to run a dnf update. SSH over Wireguard became unresponsive and the vCPUs burst to around 50% capacity for over an hour!
The server merely runs Wireguard and SSH. Other than those and about 4 NFT rules, there are no other modifications from the stock image. Is this distro too heavy for my tier or did I do something wrong?
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Are you able to get memory statistics as well? Here's how to set it up https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/monitoring-memory-usage-lightsail-instance/
If memory is tight then it can manifest in high CPU usage (as the memory manager is using more and more CPU trying to free up any scraps of memory that it can), a quick fix here might be adding a swap partition.
You can either create a swap file on an existing disk https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/ec2-memory-swap-file
Or add a new disk (step 1 out of this) https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lightsail/latest/userguide/create-and-attach-additional-block-storage-disks-linux-unix.html
And then set it up as a dedicated swap slice https://www.geekyramblings.net/2018/02/01/amazon-lightsail/
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This is what I did. It seems to work now and updates ok.
Now that it works normally, I monitor the memory usage during a dnf update and it doesn't really consume the entire memory or any of the swap partition, so I guess that's not it.
Some kind of bug? I highly doubt it. I guess I could turn off the swap partition and see if it crashes again but I don't really feel like messing with it now that it's working.
Strange... but I guess the answer is that AlmaLinux isn't particularly heavy.
Thank you either way!
No worries.
I had a similar(-ish) issue on another low-specced device - Raspberry Pi 4B running CentOS 8 - and a
dnf update -ywould hang it, just like you're seeing. For that one there's a utility calledmicrodnfwhich is much more memory-efficient, or I could just have added more swap (which I did).