Runtime Memory Measurement

This page has a collection of ideas and resources having to do with measuring runtime memory of a Linux system.

Unfortunately, the existing memory measurement techniques do not give a 100% accurate accounting of memory pages (since some pages are counted more than once by some measures). See Accurate Memory Measurement - that page describes techniques (and patches) which can be used to measure the runtime memory more accurately.

Measuring memory in Linux (the basics)
Here are some basic techniques for measuring memory usage in Linux.

'free' and /proc
The 'free' command shows the memory on a machine, in certain categories.

[need explanation of categories here...'man free' doesn't explain the numbers]

$ free total      used       free     shared    buffers     cached Mem:       507564     481560      26004          0      68888     185220 -/+ buffers/cache:    227452     280112 Swap:     2136604     105168    2031436

This information is obtained from /proc/meminfo, which has additional details not shown by the 'free' command.

The following is on my machine with 512 Mb RAM, running Linux 2.6.3:

$ cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal:      507564 kB MemFree:         26004 kB Buffers:         68888 kB Cached:         185220 kB SwapCached:      29348 kB Active:         342488 kB Inactive:        32092 kB HighTotal:           0 kB HighFree:            0 kB LowTotal:       507564 kB LowFree:         26004 kB SwapTotal:     2136604 kB SwapFree:      2031436 kB Dirty:              88 kB Writeback:           0 kB Mapped:         165648 kB Slab:            73212 kB Committed_AS:   343172 kB PageTables:       2644 kB VmallocTotal:   524212 kB VmallocUsed:      7692 kB VmallocChunk:   516328 kB

See http://lwn.net/Articles/28345/ for a description of these fields

'ps' fields for memory information
The 'ps' command provides information about the memory usage of processes on a Linux system. However, it is not well documented. Here are some notes on using 'ps' and /proc to view memory usage information on a running Linux system:

meaning of ps fields:
 * %Mem - percent of memory
 * VSZ - Virtual Size
 * RSS - Resident Set Size
 * SIZE - Equivalent to VSZ
 * others??

'top' fields for memory information
See 'man top':


 * %MEM --  Memory usage (RES)
 * A task's currently used share of available physical memory.


 * VIRT --  Virtual Image (kb)
 * The total  amount  of virtual memory used by the task.  It includes all code, data and  shared  libraries  plus  pages  that  have  been swapped out.
 * VIRT = SWAP + RES


 * SWAP --  Swapped size (kb)
 * The swapped out portion of a task's total virtual memory image.


 * RES --  Resident size (kb)
 * The non-swapped physical memory a task has used.
 * RES = CODE + DATA.


 * CODE --  Code size (kb)
 * The amount of physical memory devoted to executable code, also known as the 'text resident set' size or TRS


 * DATA --  Data+Stack size (kb)
 * The amount of physical memory devoted to other than executable code, also known as the 'data resident set' size or DRS.


 * SHR --  Shared Mem size (kb)
 * The amount of shared memory used by a task. It simply reflects memory that could be potentially shared with other processes.


 * nDRT --  Dirty Pages count
 * The number of pages that have been modified since  they  were  last written  to  disk.   Dirty  pages must be written to disk before the corresponding physical memory location can be used  for  some  other virtual page.

Are the following assertions true:??
 * virtual memory usage of a process, excluding shared libs = VIRT - SHR
 * physical memory usage of a process excluding shared libraries = RES - SHR

/proc info
see 'man proc' for detailed information about the files and fields in the /proc filesystem.

/proc/ /statm
/proc/ /statm fields: columns are (in pages):

Here an example: 693 406 586 158 0 535 0

/proc/ /status
/proc/ /status fields:
 * Vm Size:    2772 kB
 * Vm Lck:        0 kB - ???
 * Vm RSS:     1624 kB
 * Vm Data:     404 kB
 * Vm Stk:       24 kB
 * Vm Exe:      608 kB
 * Vm Lib:     1440 kB

/proc/ /maps
The process maps shows the actual memory areas that have been mapped into a process' address space, and their permissions.

Example:

$ cat /proc/25042/maps 08048000-080e0000 r-xp 00000000 03:05 196610    /bin/bash 080e0000-080e6000 rw-p 00097000 03:05 196610    /bin/bash 080e6000-08148000 rwxp 00000000 00:00 0 40000000-40016000 r-xp 00000000 03:05 147471    /lib/ld-2.3.3.so 40016000-40017000 rw-p 00015000 03:05 147471     /lib/ld-2.3.3.so 40017000-40018000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 40018000-40019000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184090    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_IDENTIFICATION 40019000-4001a000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184089    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MEASUREMENT 4001a000-4001b000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184083    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_TELEPHONE 4001b000-4001c000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184091    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_ADDRESS 4001c000-4001d000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184086    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_NAME 4001d000-4001e000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184084    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_PAPER 4001e000-4001f000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184088    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/SYS_LC_MESSAGES 4001f000-40020000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184087    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MONETARY 40020000-40026000 r--p 00000000 03:05 183689    /usr/share/locale/ISO-8859-1/LC_COLLATE 40026000-40027000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184082    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_TIME 40027000-4002a000 r-xp 00000000 03:05 147459    /lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8 4002a000-4002b000 rw-p 00002000 03:05 147459    /lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8 4002b000-4002c000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 4002c000-4002e000 r-xp 00000000 03:05 147482    /lib/libdl-2.3.3.so 4002e000-4002f000 rw-p 00001000 03:05 147482     /lib/libdl-2.3.3.so 4002f000-40171000 r-xp 00000000 03:05 147511     /lib/tls/libc-2.3.3.so 40171000-40174000 rw-p 00142000 03:05 147511     /lib/tls/libc-2.3.3.so 40174000-40177000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 40177000-40178000 r--p 00000000 03:05 184085    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_NUMERIC 40178000-401a4000 r--p 00000000 03:05 183688    /usr/share/locale/ISO-8859-1/LC_CTYPE 401a4000-401a5000 r-xp 00000000 03:05 180462    /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-1.so 401a5000-401a6000 rw-p 00001000 03:05 180462     /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-1.so 401b3000-401bd000 r-xp 00000000 03:05 147492     /lib/libnss_files-2.3.3.so 401bd000-401be000 rw-p 00009000 03:05 147492     /lib/libnss_files-2.3.3.so bfffa000-c0000000 rwxp ffffb000 00:00 0 ffffe000-fffff000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0

mem_usage command to consolidate data
David Schleef wrote a program to consolidate the information from /proc/ /maps, and total up each kind of memory for a process.

Here it is: [[Media:mem_usage]] (It was obtained from http://www.schleef.org/~ds/mem_usage)

Here is the result of running mem_usage on the process used in the previous example:

$ ./mem_usage 25042 Backed by file: Executable               r-x  2048 Write/Exec (jump tables) rwx  0 RO data                  r--  240 Data                     rw-  56 Unreadable               ---  0 Unknown                       0 Anonymous: Writable code (stack)    rwx  416 Data (malloc, mmap)      rw-  20 RO data                  r--  0 Unreadable               ---  4 Unknown                       0

Inaccuracies of kernel reporting mechanisms
Many of the memory reporting mechanisms for the kernel are inaccurate, due to not recording sufficient information about the true state of the system. Here are some random notes on these inaccuracies. To see information on different methods of getting more accurate memory information, see Accurate Memory Measurement


 * "copy-on-write" pages - an mmap'ed file may be very large in the process address space, but empty until written to.

From Ratboy on Slashdot:

The mmap call can map a file (backing store) and allow data to be shared. Memory does not need to be used until the data is read (or written). And this time, the backing store doesn't even need swap (because the file is the backing store).

...

A page of code that is shared - may become a page of code that is private. A page of data that is unwritten doesn't have to exist. Even if it is read! A page of data that is written may STILL be shared.

From others on Slashdot:

Top will show you the same as ps does, ps reads /proc/ /statm and asks what's going on. The problem on linux is the copy on write principle which saves heaps of memory, but makes it virtually impossible to figure out what belongs to what. The thing is, when you fork it maps the memory and marks everything as copy on write, when something needs to write to part of the memory, then it will make the copy for each process.

However asking the process how much memory it has allocated will show all memory including stuff that is marked copy on write - that is, I could have 100 processes showing they each use 1.4MB of memory, because they all share the same library, but in fact, its the same copy they are all using so I'm only using 1.4 MB instead of 140MB (+PCB et. al)

Each thread in a process shows up as consuming the same amount of memory (either this only happens under Linuxthreads or I don't have any threaded applications running on my system).

Device mappings show up as consumed memory (which generates plenty of complaints about the X server). If you want to find out how much memory X is actually using (bytes in cached pixmaps on behalf of each process and sans device mappings), try the program here: http://69.142.116.122/dist/pixmap_mem-1.0.tgz

This contains a tiny program that lists how much memory X is using for other programs by caching pixmaps and a perl script that lists how much memory X is using sans device mappings. }}}


 * pmap is a utility which shows the memory usage of a process (it looks like it just reads and interprets /proc/ /maps).

Someone on Slashdot said:

pmap *also* overestimates memory usage, because some portion of the mapped address space isn't actually in use. RSS, on the other hand, only measures memory that is actually in use, but doesn't distinguish between memory that is shared and memory that is not. VSZ is the most pessimistic measure, since it includes all mapped memory, shared and unshared.

Heap memory usage
Heap is the dynamically allocated memory inside each process' address space that is managed by the application itself. The structure of this memory is actually managed by the C library, with the application calling malloc and free.

glibc has the capability to collect statistics information of heap functions like malloc and other functions like memory leak checking or double free.

Memory Debuggers
Several tools are available to analyze memory allocations, watch for reading and writing beyond the end of allocated memory, and do other tasks which help with debugging and tuning memory operations of a program. See Memory Debuggers for a list of different tools and their features.

Kernel Stack Usage

 * Tim is adding a stack checking function to KFT (See Kernel Function Trace)
 * This new feature has not yet been published
 * Recent -mm tree added stack-corruption-detector.patch (8th March, 2006)
 * The scripts/checkstack.pl script in the kernel tree will show the functions with the largest static stack footprint.
 * Enabling CONFIG_DEBUG_STACKOVERFLOW in the kernel will enable checking for low-stack situations in the irq handler.
 * Enabling CONFIG_4KSTACKS will cause stack overflows to occur more frequently, particularly with certain kernel code such as XFS enabled.

General kernel memory use

 * http://www.halobates.de/memorywaste.pdf - Great paper by Andi Kleen, of SUSE Labs, about dynamic memory usage of Linux systems
 * Check /proc/slabinfo to find how much memory is being used by the kernel SLAB allocator (or SLUB or SLOB, depending on what is enabled).

Kernel memory analysis tools and project
The Linux Foundation CE Workgroup has a project to analyze the kernel's dynamic memory utilization. See: Kernel dynamic memory analysis