Remote server access causes high memory usage and system freeze

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Hey @cong, thanks for the report.

The .cursorignore file only controls what Cursor indexes and what the AI can read. It doesn’t affect the file watcher, search, or extensions running on the server, so it won’t lower memory use there. The entries in yours (/proc/, /sys/, /var/lib/docker/) suggest the SSH window has / (the whole filesystem) open as its folder. On a 2 core / 4 GB server, that alone can push the remote side to its memory limit.

Here’s what usually fixes it:

  1. Open only your project folder: File → Open Folder, then pick something like /root/your-project instead of /.
  2. Press Ctrl+Shift+P, run Preferences: Open Remote Settings (JSON) (SSH: your-host), and add:
    "files.watcherExclude": {
  "**/node_modules/**": true,
  "**/.git/objects/**": true,
  "**/dist/**": true
},
"search.exclude": {
  "**/node_modules": true
}
  3. Start a new chat for each task instead of keeping one very long chat going. Very long chats add to memory use on the server.
  4. Optional, but it helps on a 4 GB machine: add a 2 to 4 GB swap file so the server slows down instead of freezing.

If memory still climbs after that, please run this on the server while usage is high and paste the output here, along with the folder path you open in Cursor:

ps -eo pid,rss,args --sort=-rss | head -15

That shows which Cursor process is using the memory.