WSL 2 consumes massive amounts of RAM and temporary Solution

[wlya]

WSL 2 starts using huge amounts of RAM after a while, just using it like normal. Vmmem is using 7 GB of my 16 GB of RAM and not returning any, even though Ubuntu is actually using much less.

sudo su
echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
sync

[digitaldias]

This workaround is not working for me, on ubuntu 20.04 - is there a particular dialect of that I need to use for the workaround? Facing the same issues with memory btw.

[BoZenKhaa]

Could it be that the memory in WSL is used as cache, as in this issue? From Windows, that memory will appear as used.

If that's the case, you can try this. That worked for me in WSL2 with Ubuntu 18.04.

[wlya]

This workaround is not working for me, on ubuntu 20.04 - is there a particular dialect of that I need to use for the workaround? Facing the same issues with memory btw.

I have tested Ubuntu20.04 wsl2, works fine.

[wlya]

Could it be that the memory in WSL is used as cache, as in this issue? From Windows, that memory will appear as used.

Yes, just because Linux does not want to free memory and intended to cache them as possible.

[craigloewen-msft]

I'm going to label this as a discussion. The best workaround here is to use .wslconfig to put a memory limit on your WSL 2 VM. Please also see this longstanding thread where we are tracking this issue: #4166

[wlya]

I'm going to label this as a discussion. The best workaround here is to use .wslconfig to put a memory limit on your WSL 2 VM. Please also see this longstanding thread where we are tracking this issue: #4166

Ok, thank you. I post this just to post another viewpoint.