Physicsal/swap Memory Information

Scott_Purcell at Dell.com Scott_Purcell at Dell.com
Mon Aug 18 14:52:15 CDT 2008


I may be misunderstanding your question, but if you are asking why Linux
shows less memory as "free" than other operating systems it is explained
by a difference in how Linux handles its cache.
 
As I understand it (and I offer this as a list participant, not as a
Dell representative -- I am not an engineer), Linux bases its memory
management on the statistical likelihood that the code or data that I'm
most likely to need NEXT is very likely to be something that I've needed
RECENTLY.  Therefore, it does not routinely clear recently used memory
UNTIL it is needed for something else not already loaded in memory.
This causes memory to nearly always be reported as mostly "used".
 
The benefit from this is that when you find yourself reusing an
application or data that is still in memory it is MUCH faster since it
only has to be retrieved from memory instead of needing to be loaded
from disk.  Here's an example.
 
* Application A called -- code and data moved from disk to memory (slow)
* Application A executes -- memory shown as used
* Application A is complete -- code and data remain in memory, memory
still shown as used
* Application A is called again -- code and data found in memory (very
fast)
* Application A executes, completes, and exits --  code and data remain
in memory, memory still shown as used
* Application B called -- code and data moved from disk to memory
(slow), first to unallocated memory, then removing (or moving to SWAP)
Application A and its data if needed.
 
As I understand it, it is generally not regarded as a problem at all
when much of your physical memory is shown as "used" unless you are also
short on free Swap as well.
 
Does that help answer the question you were intending to ask?  Or did I
misinterpret?
 
Corrections / Clarifications welcome.
 
Scott

________________________________

From: linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com
[mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] On Behalf Of ammad shah
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 1:50 PM
To: Baird, Josh; linux-poweredge-Lists
Subject: RE: Physicsal/swap Memory Information



Yes Josh 

you are right, but why it is in "cached" in windows or Unix clones
"unused memory " is cleared . or garbage recoved

# vmstat
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system--
----cpu----
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy
id wa
 0  0    160  33476  12772 9963508    0    0  2164   275    1    10  1
1 97  1
 





________________________________

Subject: RE: Physicsal/swap Memory Information
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:45:23 -0500
From: jbaird at follett.com
To: mammadshah at hotmail.com; linux-poweredge at dell.com



The missing memory you are referring to (I think?) is more than likely
being used by kernel processes.  More detailed memory statistics can be
obtain by using tools such as vmstat and looking at the contents of
/proc/meminfo.

 

Thanks,

 

Josh

 

From: linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com
[mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] On Behalf Of ammad shah
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 1:39 PM
To: linux-poweredge at dell.com
Subject: Physicsal/swap Memory Information

 


Hi, 

I would like to ask the forum, (again) about Memory utilization. ...from
which tool i will be able to get information of current max utilization
of Memory.

the output of "top" with "M" is 

top - 00:16:37 up 6 days, 24 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.19,
0.45
Tasks: 113 total,   1 running, 112 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.0% us,  0.0% sy,  0.0% ni, 100.0% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,
0.0% si
Mem:  10231008k total, 10196572k used,    34436k free,    11884k buffers
Swap:  6289408k total,      160k used,  6289248k free,  9963308k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
28706 mysql     16   0  408m  93m 3876 S  0.0  0.9 222:51.96 mysqld
 2947 root      16   0 21600 9084 1588 S  0.0  0.1   0:01.02 hald
30958 root      16   0 37108 2696 2100 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 sshd
 2890 root      16   0 21944 2072 1628 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.44 sshd
30960 root      15   0 53988 1628 1216 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 bash
28507 root      16   0 53844 1328 1096 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 mysqld_safe
 2934 dbus      16   0  9672 1240 1072 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.05
dbus-daemon-1
 2915 root      16   0 57112 1180  744 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.16 crond
 5211 root      16   0 19852 1084  880 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rpc.idmapd
31041 root      16   0  6144 1020  772 R  0.3  0.0   0:00.01 top
 9806 root      17   0  8016  976  780 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rpc.mountd
 9789 root      18   0 53208  768  648 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rpc.rquotad
 9858 rpc       16   0  4744  680  556 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 portmap
 2737 root      16   0  3624  612  496 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.26 syslogd
    1 root      16   0  4748  548  456 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.73 init
 2851 root      20   0  2536  536  452 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 acpid
 2904 root      16   0  4172  532  452 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 gpm
 2752 root      16   0  2528  492  404 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 irqbalance
 2741 root      15   0  2532  484  404 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 klogd
 1232 root       6 -10  3600  452  360 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 udevd
 2956 root      16   0  2516  404  340 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
 2957 root      18   0  2516  404  340 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
 2958 root      18   0  2516  404  340 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
 2959 root      18   0  2516  404  340 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
 2960 root      22   0  2516  404  340 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
 2961 root      17   0  2516  404  340 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
    2 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 migration/0
    3 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    4 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/1
    5 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/1
    6 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 migration/2
    7 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/2


as you people can see that top utilization of mysql is "93 M" where as
the output of  "free -m" is 

# free -m
              total        used     free  shared    buffers     cached
Mem:      9991       9958        33          0         12       9729
-/+ buffers/cache:        215       9775
Swap:         6142          0       6141


where is remaining  memory ???????????????. 

while i can see the utilization in "GUI" task manger tools .......

any idea. .........

thanks







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