For general assessment of memory available, following two commands are used. From these command output you will be able to tell whether the platform memory utilization is normal or un-expected:
N7K-1-VDC2# show system resources
Load average: 1 minute: 0.11 5 minutes: 0.09 15 minutes: 0.14
Processes : 1241 total, 2 running
CPU states : 2.0% user, 3.4% kernel, 94.6% idle
Memory usage: 4115232K total, 3606556K used, 508676K free
Note: The “show system resources” command is used to display platform memory statistics.
For memory information per process for current VDC , following command is used:
N7k-3-VDC3# show processes memory
PID MemAlloc MemLimit MemUsed StackBase/Ptr Process
----- -------- ---------- ---------- ----------------- ----------------
4662 52756480 562929945 150167552 bfffdf00/bfffd970 netstack
MemAlloc: Data Segement size
MemLimit: Maximum memory process can use
MemUsed: Virtual Memory
For a detailed assessment of platform memory utilization, use:
N7k-3-VDC3# show system internal kernel meminfo
MemTotal: 4115232 kB -------This is the total amount of memory in the system (4 GB in Sup 1)
MemFree: 263684 kB
Buffers: 82400 kB
Cached: 1817788 kB -------The memory used by the page cache
ShmFS: 1533324 kB
Allowed: 1028808 Pages
Free: 65921 Pages
Available: 164026 Pages -------Amount of free memory in pages
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 2080320 kB
Inactive: 1433752 kB
HighTotal: 3338960 kB
HighFree: 4092 kB
LowTotal: 776272 kB
LowFree: 259592 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 1613748 kB
Mapped: 456088 kB ------Memory mapped into page tables
Slab: 142884 kB --------Rough indication of kernel memory consumption
SReclaimable: 25556 kB
SUnreclaim: 117328 kB
PageTables: 32756 kB
Note: One page of memory is equivalent of 4 KB of memory.
Using above commands you can determine if the utilization is high due to page cache, process holding memory or Kernel.
For further troubleshooting:
For Page cache:
If Cached is high, you should check the file system utilization and determine what kind of files are using the file system:
N7K-1-VDC2# show system internal flash
Mount-on 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Filesystem
/ 409600 43008 367616 11 /dev/root
/proc 0 0 0 0 proc
/sys 0 0 0 0 none
/isan 409600 269312 140288 66 none
/var/tmp 307200 876 306324 1 none
/var/sysmgr 1048576 999424 49152 96 none
/var/sysmgr/ftp 307200 24576 282624 8 none
/dev/shm 1048576 412672 635904 40 none
/volatile 204800 0 204800 0 none
/debug 2048 16 2032 1 none
/dev/mqueue 0 0 0 0 none
/mnt/cfg/0 76099 5674 66496 8 /dev/hda5
/mnt/cfg/1 75605 5674 66027 8 /dev/hda6
/bootflash 1796768 629784 1075712 37 /dev/hda3
/var/sysmgr/startup-cfg 409600 27536 382064 7 none
/mnt/plog 56192 3064 53128 6 /dev/mtdblock2
/dev/pts 0 0 0 0 devpts
/mnt/pss 38554 6682 29882 19 /dev/hda4
/slot0 2026608 4 2026604 1 /dev/hdc1
/logflash 7997912 219408 7372232 3 /dev/hde1
/bootflash_sup-remote 1767480 1121784 555912 67 127.1.1.6:/mnt/bootflash/
/logflash_sup-remote 7953616 554976 6994608 8 127.1.1.6:/mnt/logflash/
For displaying contents of these sub-folders, use:
show system internal dir full directory path
for example: show system internal dir /bootflash
And, to delete a specific file use:
filesys delete full file path
For Kernel:
Contact Cisco TAC
For user processes:
N7K# show system internal processes memory
PID TTY STAT TIME MAJFLT TRS RSS VSZ %MEM COMMAND
4727 ? Ss 00:00:00 0 1549 123248 132832 2.9 /isan/bin/pixm
4728 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 408 78388 143104 1.8 /isan/bin/routing-sw/mrib -m 4
6662 ? Ssl 00:00:05 0 2762 64024 144396 1.5 /isan/bin/routing-sw/netstack /isan/etc/routing-sw/pm.cfg
4538 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 2762 60448 211664 1.4 /isan/bin/routing-sw/netstack /isan/etc/routing-sw/pm.cfg
5865 ? Ssl 00:00:01 0 2762 60416 113320 1.4 /isan/bin/routing-sw/netstack /isan/etc/routing-sw/pm.cfg
6395 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 2762 52008 105552 1.2 /isan/bin/routing-sw/netstack /isan/etc/routing-sw/pm.cfg
4271 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 609 49812 61420 1.2 /isan/bin/routing-sw/urib
7879 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 1909 44800 90508 1.0 /isan/bin/routing-sw/bgp -t 64000
5696 ? Ssl 00:00:17 0 337 44696 55252 1.0 /isan/bin/routing-sw/clis -cli /isan/etc/routing-sw/cli
5333 ? Ssl 00:00:14 0 337 44652 55208 1.0 /isan/bin/routing-sw/clis -cli /isan/etc/routing-sw/cli
4182 ? Ssl 00:00:15 0 337 44648 55204 1.0 /isan/bin/routing-sw/clis -cli /isan/etc/routing-sw/cli
6076 ? Ssl 00:00:14 0 337 44624 55284 1.0 /isan/bin/routing-sw/clis -cli /isan/etc/routing-sw/cli
6825 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 1402 44576 84020 1.0 /isan/bin/routing-sw/pim -t
4268 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 363 27132 38896 0.6 /isan/bin/routing-sw/u6rib
4732 ? Ssl 00:00:00 0 404 25220 65360 0.6 /isan/bin/routing-sw/m6rib
4726 ? S<s 00:00:00 0 144 25208 30188 0.6 /isan/bin/pixmc
Increase in the utilization for a specific process will indicate a problem. Troubleshooting process afterward depends on the culprit process.
Note: The above output when taken from any VDC will show content of all VDCs.
Memory threshold for releases prior to 4.2(4):
- 70% Minor
- 80% Critical
- 90% Major
For 4.2(4) and later releases:
- 85% Minor
- 90% Critical
- 95% Major
These thresholds can be configured by using command:
system memory-thresholds minor percentage severe percentage critical percentage
The command that can be used to check memory alert info is:
Show system internal memory-alert-log
