NetWorker: High memory usage of process nsrmmdbd
Summary: The NetWorker server nsrmmdbd is being killed by the operating systems "Out of Memory" (OOM) monitor.
Symptoms
The OS is killing the nsrmmdbd process. This results in impacts to the NetWorker server, such as failed backups.
The NetWorker server daemon.raw reports the following:
- Linux:
/nsr/logs/daemon.raw - Windows (Default):
C:\Program Files\EMC NetWorker\nsr\logs\daemon.raw - NetWorker: How to use nsr_render_log to render .raw log files
71193 12/13/25 15:46:34 0 0 0 841355584 29252 0 myserver nsrd NSR info NetWorker Daemons Warning: nsrmmdbd received signal 9 (SIGKILL)
On Linux servers, the /var/log/messages file reports "Out of Memory" messages. This results in oom-kill to stop nsrmmbdb
Dec 13 15:46:33 myserver kernel: oom-kill:constraint=CONSTRAINT_NONE,nodemask=(null),cpuset=/,mems_allowed=0,global_oom,task_memcg=/,task=nsrmmdbd,pid=2079,uid=0 Dec 13 15:46:33 myserver kernel: Out of memory: Killed process 2079 (nsrmmdbd) total-vm:25889764kB, anon-rss:24201136kB, file-rss:0kB, shmem-rss:0kB Dec 13 15:46:34 myserver kernel: oom_reaper: reaped process 2079 (nsrmmdbd), now anon-rss:0kB, file-rss:0kB, shmem-rss:0kB
On Windows servers, the System and Application Event logs may report similar error messaging.
nsrmmdbd due to this reason.
Cause
The nsrmmdbd process reports a high memory usage that increases over the time.
When the system is running low on memory, OOM kills the process.
Resolution
The NetWorker Performance Optimization Planning Guide details requirements for nsrmmdbd sizes of 1GB and more. See chapter: Optimizing nsrmmdbd memory usage. NetWorker documentation is available through: Support for NetWorker | Manuals & Documents
Also, ensure that the server has adequate compute resources for the environment size. See chapter: Memory requirements for the NetWorker server and NetWorker Management Console
The MMDB_SQLITE parameter and other system kernel parameter best practices are documented in the following article: NetWorker: Best practices for networking configuration
Additional Information
Example: a medium installation for a virtual server. The system is installed with 8 vCPUs and 32 GB.
The top command can be used to check high memory consumption:
$ top -b -n1 -o VIRT | head -10 top - 16:37:02 up 96 days, 9:43, 1 user, load average: 0.22, 0.18, 0.18 Tasks: 233 total, 1 running, 232 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 1.5 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni, 98.5 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st MiB Mem : 32086.33+total, 819.785 free, 28642.18+used, 3852.422 buff/cache MiB Swap: 0.000 total, 0.000 free, 0.000 used. 3444.148 avail Mem PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 4479 root 20 0 21.372g 0.019t 10320 S 0.000 63.21 333:05.33 nsrmmdbd 29053 nsrtomc+ 20 0 13.205g 1.046g 0 S 0.000 3.338 292:31.41 jsvc 30201 root 20 0 5897400 1.324g 160 S 0.000 4.224 772:19.41 nsrjobd
A run of top all 8 h shows the increase:
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 12-01-2026 16:37:02 4479 root 20 0 7494208 4.984g 17528 S 0.000 15.91 19:59.54 nsrmmdbd 13-01-2026 00:37:02 4479 root 20 0 9155648 6.781g 17528 S 0.000 21.64 35:29.59 nsrmmdbd 13-01-2026 08:37:02 4479 root 20 0 9853.0m 7.975g 17528 S 0.000 25.45 51:37.20 nsrmmdbd 13-01-2026 16:37:01 4479 root 20 0 10.153g 8.706g 15928 S 12.50 27.78 72:34.67 nsrmmdbd 14-01-2026 00:37:01 4479 root 20 0 11.302g 0.010t 15928 S 0.000 31.94 87:09.14 nsrmmdbd 14-01-2026 08:37:01 4479 root 20 0 11.747g 0.010t 15940 S 0.000 32.79 103:40.44 nsrmmdbd 14-01-2026 16:37:02 4479 root 20 0 12.716g 0.011t 15884 S 0.000 36.56 123:03.84 nsrmmdbd 15-01-2026 00:37:01 4479 root 20 0 13.997g 0.012t 15884 S 0.000 39.81 139:23.88 nsrmmdbd 15-01-2026 08:37:02 4479 root 20 0 14.466g 0.013t 15764 S 0.000 43.15 156:23.82 nsrmmdbd 15-01-2026 16:37:02 4479 root 20 0 14.974g 0.013t 15976 S 0.000 43.20 175:53.13 nsrmmdbd 16-01-2026 00:37:02 4479 root 20 0 15.411g 0.013t 15680 S 0.000 44.04 192:25.13 nsrmmdbd 16-01-2026 08:37:02 4479 root 20 0 15.521g 0.014t 15680 S 0.000 44.57 208:31.53 nsrmmdbd 16-01-2026 16:37:01 4479 root 20 0 16.685g 0.015t 10644 S 0.000 47.91 227:23.48 nsrmmdbd 17-01-2026 00:37:01 4479 root 20 0 17.747g 0.016t 10128 S 0.000 51.22 243:27.54 nsrmmdbd 17-01-2026 08:37:01 4479 root 20 0 18.677g 0.017t 10112 S 0.000 54.56 260:42.09 nsrmmdbd 17-01-2026 16:37:01 4479 root 20 0 19.802g 0.018t 10496 S 0.000 57.97 279:54.55 nsrmmdbd 18-01-2026 00:37:01 4479 root 20 0 19.911g 0.018t 10248 S 0.000 58.30 296:37.80 nsrmmdbd 18-01-2026 08:37:02 4479 root 20 0 21.083g 0.019t 10348 S 0.000 62.94 313:42.43 nsrmmdbd 18-01-2026 16:37:02 4479 root 20 0 21.372g 0.019t 10320 S 0.000 63.21 333:05.33 nsrmmdbd
For additional information about troubleshooting process resource utilization, see: