https://tonym.us/tag/memory.html Recent content in Memory on Tony Metzidis Hugo en-us Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://tonym.us/taming-gce-memory-tax-oslogin-osconfig.html Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://tonym.us/taming-gce-memory-tax-oslogin-osconfig.html <p>Google Compute Engine&rsquo;s <code>e2-micro</code> instances are a staple of the GCP Free Tier, offering 2 vCPUs and roughly 1 GB of RAM (969 MiB usable). They are ideal for lightweight bastions, cron runners, and small test beds. However, if you run memory-sensitive workloads—such as Go builds, package extractions, or continuous process forks—you may have experienced intermittent, baffling SSH connection timeouts and unresponsive terminals.</p> <p>The root cause is rarely your application alone. By default, GCE provisions a suite of Google guest daemons that consume a disproportionate share of resident memory on small VMs, creating an environment primed for SSH exhaustion.</p>