[operating-system] Comprehensive methods of viewing memory usage on Solaris

On Linux, the "top" command shows a detailed but high level overview of your memory usage, showing:

Total Memory, Used Memory, Free Memory, Buffer Usage, Cache Usage, Swap size and Swap Usage.

My question is, what commands are available to show these memory usage figures in a clear and simple way? Bonus points if they're present in the "Core" install of Solaris. 'sar' doesn't count :)

This question is related to operating-system solaris sysadmin

The answer is


Here are the basics. I'm not sure that any of these count as "clear and simple" though.

ps(1)

For process-level view:

$ ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
  PID  VSZ  RSS   SZ COMMAND
 1831 1776 1008  222 ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
 1782 3464 2504  433 -bash
$

vsz/VSZ: total virtual process size (kb)

rss/RSS: resident set size (kb, may be inaccurate(!), see man)

osz/SZ: total size in memory (pages)

To compute byte size from pages:

$ sz_pages=$(ps -o osz -p $pid | grep -v SZ )
$ sz_bytes=$(( $sz_pages * $(pagesize) ))
$ sz_mbytes=$(( $sz_bytes / ( 1024 * 1024 ) ))
$ echo "$pid OSZ=$sz_mbytes MB"

vmstat(1M)

$ vmstat 5 5 
 kthr      memory            page            disk          faults      cpu
 r b w   swap  free  re  mf pi po fr de sr rm s3 -- --   in   sy   cs us sy id
 0 0 0 535832 219880  1   2  0  0  0  0  0 -0  0  0  0  402   19   97  0  1 99
 0 0 0 514376 203648  1   4  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  402   19   96  0  1 99
^C

prstat(1M)

   PID USERNAME  SIZE   RSS STATE  PRI NICE      TIME  CPU PROCESS/NLWP       
  1852 martin   4840K 3600K cpu0    59    0   0:00:00 0.3% prstat/1
  1780 martin   9384K 2920K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% sshd/1
  ...

swap(1)

"Long listing" and "summary" modes:

$ swap -l
swapfile             dev  swaplo blocks   free
/dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap 256,1      16 1048560 1048560
$ swap -s 
total: 42352k bytes allocated + 20192k reserved = 62544k used, 607672k available
$

top(1)

An older version (3.51) is available on the Solaris companion CD from Sun, with the disclaimer that this is "Community (not Sun) supported". More recent binary packages available from sunfreeware.com or blastwave.org.

load averages:  0.02,  0.00,  0.00;                      up 2+12:31:38                                                                                            08:53:58
31 processes: 30 sleeping, 1 on cpu
CPU states: 98.0% idle,  0.0% user,  2.0% kernel,  0.0% iowait,  0.0% swap
Memory: 1024M phys mem, 197M free mem, 512M total swap, 512M free swap

   PID USERNAME LWP PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE    TIME    CPU COMMAND
  1898 martin     1  54    0 3336K 1808K cpu      0:00  0.96% top
     7 root      11  59    0   10M 7912K sleep    0:09  0.02% svc.startd

sar(1M)

And just what's wrong with sar? :)


"top" is usually available on Solaris.

If not then revert to "vmstat" which is available on most UNIX system.

It should look something like this (from an AIX box)

vmstat

System configuration: lcpu=4 mem=12288MB ent=2.00

kthr    memory              page              faults              cpu
----- ----------- ------------------------ ------------ -----------------------
 r  b   avm   fre  re  pi  po  fr   sr  cy  in   sy  cs us sy id wa    pc    ec
 2  1 1614644 585722   0   0   1  22  104   0 808 29047 2767 12  8 77  3  0.45  22.3

the colums "avm" and "fre" tell you the total memory and free memery.

a "man vmstat" should get you the gory details.


Top can be compiled from sources or downloaded from sunfreeware.com. As previously posted, vmstat is available (I believe it's in the core install?).


The command free is nice. Takes a short while to understand the "+/- buffers/cache", but the idea is that cache and buffers doesn't really count when evaluating "free", as it can be dumped right away. Therefore, to see how much free (and used) memory you have, you need to remove the cache/buffer usage - which is conveniently done for you.


Top can be compiled from sources or downloaded from sunfreeware.com. As previously posted, vmstat is available (I believe it's in the core install?).


Here are the basics. I'm not sure that any of these count as "clear and simple" though.

ps(1)

For process-level view:

$ ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
  PID  VSZ  RSS   SZ COMMAND
 1831 1776 1008  222 ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
 1782 3464 2504  433 -bash
$

vsz/VSZ: total virtual process size (kb)

rss/RSS: resident set size (kb, may be inaccurate(!), see man)

osz/SZ: total size in memory (pages)

To compute byte size from pages:

$ sz_pages=$(ps -o osz -p $pid | grep -v SZ )
$ sz_bytes=$(( $sz_pages * $(pagesize) ))
$ sz_mbytes=$(( $sz_bytes / ( 1024 * 1024 ) ))
$ echo "$pid OSZ=$sz_mbytes MB"

vmstat(1M)

$ vmstat 5 5 
 kthr      memory            page            disk          faults      cpu
 r b w   swap  free  re  mf pi po fr de sr rm s3 -- --   in   sy   cs us sy id
 0 0 0 535832 219880  1   2  0  0  0  0  0 -0  0  0  0  402   19   97  0  1 99
 0 0 0 514376 203648  1   4  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  402   19   96  0  1 99
^C

prstat(1M)

   PID USERNAME  SIZE   RSS STATE  PRI NICE      TIME  CPU PROCESS/NLWP       
  1852 martin   4840K 3600K cpu0    59    0   0:00:00 0.3% prstat/1
  1780 martin   9384K 2920K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% sshd/1
  ...

swap(1)

"Long listing" and "summary" modes:

$ swap -l
swapfile             dev  swaplo blocks   free
/dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap 256,1      16 1048560 1048560
$ swap -s 
total: 42352k bytes allocated + 20192k reserved = 62544k used, 607672k available
$

top(1)

An older version (3.51) is available on the Solaris companion CD from Sun, with the disclaimer that this is "Community (not Sun) supported". More recent binary packages available from sunfreeware.com or blastwave.org.

load averages:  0.02,  0.00,  0.00;                      up 2+12:31:38                                                                                            08:53:58
31 processes: 30 sleeping, 1 on cpu
CPU states: 98.0% idle,  0.0% user,  2.0% kernel,  0.0% iowait,  0.0% swap
Memory: 1024M phys mem, 197M free mem, 512M total swap, 512M free swap

   PID USERNAME LWP PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE    TIME    CPU COMMAND
  1898 martin     1  54    0 3336K 1808K cpu      0:00  0.96% top
     7 root      11  59    0   10M 7912K sleep    0:09  0.02% svc.startd

sar(1M)

And just what's wrong with sar? :)


# echo ::memstat | mdb -k
Page Summary                Pages                MB  %Tot
------------     ----------------  ----------------  ----
Kernel                       7308                57   23%
Anon                         9055                70   29%
Exec and libs                1968                15    6%
Page cache                   2224                17    7%
Free (cachelist)             6470                50   20%
Free (freelist)              4641                36   15%

Total                       31666               247
Physical                    31256               244

Here are the basics. I'm not sure that any of these count as "clear and simple" though.

ps(1)

For process-level view:

$ ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
  PID  VSZ  RSS   SZ COMMAND
 1831 1776 1008  222 ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
 1782 3464 2504  433 -bash
$

vsz/VSZ: total virtual process size (kb)

rss/RSS: resident set size (kb, may be inaccurate(!), see man)

osz/SZ: total size in memory (pages)

To compute byte size from pages:

$ sz_pages=$(ps -o osz -p $pid | grep -v SZ )
$ sz_bytes=$(( $sz_pages * $(pagesize) ))
$ sz_mbytes=$(( $sz_bytes / ( 1024 * 1024 ) ))
$ echo "$pid OSZ=$sz_mbytes MB"

vmstat(1M)

$ vmstat 5 5 
 kthr      memory            page            disk          faults      cpu
 r b w   swap  free  re  mf pi po fr de sr rm s3 -- --   in   sy   cs us sy id
 0 0 0 535832 219880  1   2  0  0  0  0  0 -0  0  0  0  402   19   97  0  1 99
 0 0 0 514376 203648  1   4  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  402   19   96  0  1 99
^C

prstat(1M)

   PID USERNAME  SIZE   RSS STATE  PRI NICE      TIME  CPU PROCESS/NLWP       
  1852 martin   4840K 3600K cpu0    59    0   0:00:00 0.3% prstat/1
  1780 martin   9384K 2920K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% sshd/1
  ...

swap(1)

"Long listing" and "summary" modes:

$ swap -l
swapfile             dev  swaplo blocks   free
/dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap 256,1      16 1048560 1048560
$ swap -s 
total: 42352k bytes allocated + 20192k reserved = 62544k used, 607672k available
$

top(1)

An older version (3.51) is available on the Solaris companion CD from Sun, with the disclaimer that this is "Community (not Sun) supported". More recent binary packages available from sunfreeware.com or blastwave.org.

load averages:  0.02,  0.00,  0.00;                      up 2+12:31:38                                                                                            08:53:58
31 processes: 30 sleeping, 1 on cpu
CPU states: 98.0% idle,  0.0% user,  2.0% kernel,  0.0% iowait,  0.0% swap
Memory: 1024M phys mem, 197M free mem, 512M total swap, 512M free swap

   PID USERNAME LWP PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE    TIME    CPU COMMAND
  1898 martin     1  54    0 3336K 1808K cpu      0:00  0.96% top
     7 root      11  59    0   10M 7912K sleep    0:09  0.02% svc.startd

sar(1M)

And just what's wrong with sar? :)


# echo ::memstat | mdb -k
Page Summary                Pages                MB  %Tot
------------     ----------------  ----------------  ----
Kernel                       7308                57   23%
Anon                         9055                70   29%
Exec and libs                1968                15    6%
Page cache                   2224                17    7%
Free (cachelist)             6470                50   20%
Free (freelist)              4641                36   15%

Total                       31666               247
Physical                    31256               244

"top" is usually available on Solaris.

If not then revert to "vmstat" which is available on most UNIX system.

It should look something like this (from an AIX box)

vmstat

System configuration: lcpu=4 mem=12288MB ent=2.00

kthr    memory              page              faults              cpu
----- ----------- ------------------------ ------------ -----------------------
 r  b   avm   fre  re  pi  po  fr   sr  cy  in   sy  cs us sy id wa    pc    ec
 2  1 1614644 585722   0   0   1  22  104   0 808 29047 2767 12  8 77  3  0.45  22.3

the colums "avm" and "fre" tell you the total memory and free memery.

a "man vmstat" should get you the gory details.


Top can be compiled from sources or downloaded from sunfreeware.com. As previously posted, vmstat is available (I believe it's in the core install?).


Here are the basics. I'm not sure that any of these count as "clear and simple" though.

ps(1)

For process-level view:

$ ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
  PID  VSZ  RSS   SZ COMMAND
 1831 1776 1008  222 ps -opid,vsz,rss,osz,args
 1782 3464 2504  433 -bash
$

vsz/VSZ: total virtual process size (kb)

rss/RSS: resident set size (kb, may be inaccurate(!), see man)

osz/SZ: total size in memory (pages)

To compute byte size from pages:

$ sz_pages=$(ps -o osz -p $pid | grep -v SZ )
$ sz_bytes=$(( $sz_pages * $(pagesize) ))
$ sz_mbytes=$(( $sz_bytes / ( 1024 * 1024 ) ))
$ echo "$pid OSZ=$sz_mbytes MB"

vmstat(1M)

$ vmstat 5 5 
 kthr      memory            page            disk          faults      cpu
 r b w   swap  free  re  mf pi po fr de sr rm s3 -- --   in   sy   cs us sy id
 0 0 0 535832 219880  1   2  0  0  0  0  0 -0  0  0  0  402   19   97  0  1 99
 0 0 0 514376 203648  1   4  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  402   19   96  0  1 99
^C

prstat(1M)

   PID USERNAME  SIZE   RSS STATE  PRI NICE      TIME  CPU PROCESS/NLWP       
  1852 martin   4840K 3600K cpu0    59    0   0:00:00 0.3% prstat/1
  1780 martin   9384K 2920K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% sshd/1
  ...

swap(1)

"Long listing" and "summary" modes:

$ swap -l
swapfile             dev  swaplo blocks   free
/dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap 256,1      16 1048560 1048560
$ swap -s 
total: 42352k bytes allocated + 20192k reserved = 62544k used, 607672k available
$

top(1)

An older version (3.51) is available on the Solaris companion CD from Sun, with the disclaimer that this is "Community (not Sun) supported". More recent binary packages available from sunfreeware.com or blastwave.org.

load averages:  0.02,  0.00,  0.00;                      up 2+12:31:38                                                                                            08:53:58
31 processes: 30 sleeping, 1 on cpu
CPU states: 98.0% idle,  0.0% user,  2.0% kernel,  0.0% iowait,  0.0% swap
Memory: 1024M phys mem, 197M free mem, 512M total swap, 512M free swap

   PID USERNAME LWP PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE    TIME    CPU COMMAND
  1898 martin     1  54    0 3336K 1808K cpu      0:00  0.96% top
     7 root      11  59    0   10M 7912K sleep    0:09  0.02% svc.startd

sar(1M)

And just what's wrong with sar? :)


# echo ::memstat | mdb -k
Page Summary                Pages                MB  %Tot
------------     ----------------  ----------------  ----
Kernel                       7308                57   23%
Anon                         9055                70   29%
Exec and libs                1968                15    6%
Page cache                   2224                17    7%
Free (cachelist)             6470                50   20%
Free (freelist)              4641                36   15%

Total                       31666               247
Physical                    31256               244

The command free is nice. Takes a short while to understand the "+/- buffers/cache", but the idea is that cache and buffers doesn't really count when evaluating "free", as it can be dumped right away. Therefore, to see how much free (and used) memory you have, you need to remove the cache/buffer usage - which is conveniently done for you.


Top can be compiled from sources or downloaded from sunfreeware.com. As previously posted, vmstat is available (I believe it's in the core install?).


# echo ::memstat | mdb -k
Page Summary                Pages                MB  %Tot
------------     ----------------  ----------------  ----
Kernel                       7308                57   23%
Anon                         9055                70   29%
Exec and libs                1968                15    6%
Page cache                   2224                17    7%
Free (cachelist)             6470                50   20%
Free (freelist)              4641                36   15%

Total                       31666               247
Physical                    31256               244

"top" is usually available on Solaris.

If not then revert to "vmstat" which is available on most UNIX system.

It should look something like this (from an AIX box)

vmstat

System configuration: lcpu=4 mem=12288MB ent=2.00

kthr    memory              page              faults              cpu
----- ----------- ------------------------ ------------ -----------------------
 r  b   avm   fre  re  pi  po  fr   sr  cy  in   sy  cs us sy id wa    pc    ec
 2  1 1614644 585722   0   0   1  22  104   0 808 29047 2767 12  8 77  3  0.45  22.3

the colums "avm" and "fre" tell you the total memory and free memery.

a "man vmstat" should get you the gory details.


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