[c-nsp] BGP dram confusion

[Lukas Tribus]

> On a old 3800 we had basically the same config, bgp used around 300mb 
> and total memory use was around 400mb. I dont see why the total memory
> consumption is 900mb and bgp only 300 (now 64 btw).
> i have no full table any more but the memory use hasnt droped. some must
> be wrong with me or my router.

You assumption that just because you reduce prefixes the threads will release
all the buffers previsouly allocated is wrong. Memory allocation is not that simple.

Even if the software you are using would be perfectly bug-free and optimized to
release buffers asap (neither is probably the case), most of the times it cannot easily
be done, because a buffer can only be freed if *all* its content is gone, and
it will not be copied around to defragment the memory, the memory
will stay fragmented until you reboot.

Reload the box, that will free the memory. "no router bgp" will probably do the
same, as it should close the BGP thread running in IOS.


Lukas