High Memory Usage on Switches

[stuart]

Hi, I have a couple of 3524xl switches and their memory usage is always at or above 70% and a 2924xl switch that is always at 90%. Is this common for switches to perform like this? Is it time to upgrade these switches?

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

when you do a ´show proc cpu´ can you see if there is a specific process that uses a lot of CPU ?

You might want to check these documents:

Troubleshooting Common Issues on the Catalyst 2900XL and 3500XL Series Switches

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/hw/switches/ps607/products_tech_note09186a0080125913.shtml#troubleshooting_cpu

High CPU Utilization on Catalyst 2900XL/3500XL Switches

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/hw/switches/ps607/products_tech_note09186a0080094e78.shtml

HTH,

Georg

[stuart]

Just to make sure you read the post correctly, my question is of the memory and not so much the processor.

Here is a sho mem...

Head Total(b) Used(b) Free(b) Lowest(b) Largest(b)

Processor 2E2F78 1274628 1148032 126596 123260 95052

I/O 70000000 655360 321520 333840 195508 287144

PCI F00A0000 393216 87148 306068 295108 294564

Here is an output of sho proc cpu...

CPU utilization for five seconds: 31%/6%; one minute: 26%; five minutes: 25%

PID Runtime(ms) Invoked uSecs 5Sec 1Min 5Min TTY Process

1 1771 310508 5 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Load Meter

2 567 624 908 1.84% 0.61% 0.15% 1 Virtual Exec

3 958035 26752 35811 0.00% 0.06% 0.05% 0 Check heaps

4 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Pool Manager

5 0 2 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Timers

6 1062864 1312158 810 0.00% 0.06% 0.06% 0 ARP Input

7 15265861 6095177 2504 0.71% 0.67% 0.69% 0 Enet Aging

8 8845308 89374181 98 3.37% 0.01% 0.62% 0 LED Control Process

9 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 RAM Access (co0) Rx

10 245281201 160472285 1528 11.36% 10.98% 10.80% 0 Port Status Process

12 6895341 31947811 215 0.51% 0.36% 0.33% 0 GDS Frame Ager

17 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 RAM Access (co1) Rx

19 18996854 25675840 739 0.51% 0.80% 0.82% 0 Broadcast Storm Control

20 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Port Group Changes

21 458818 306209 1498 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 CDP Protocol

22 51983 22847 2275 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Address Learning

23 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 RAM Access (co2) Rx

24 2089007 4763371 438 0.40% 0.14% 0.08% 0 IP Input

25 594797 22056 26967 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Address Deletion

26 152 32 4750 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Switch CGMP Protocol

27 100 7 14285 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 VLAN Manager

PID Runtime(ms) Invoked uSecs 5Sec 1Min 5Min TTY Process

28 38076 310721 122 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 TCP Timer

29 292 331 882 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 TCP Protocols

30 21898 155196 141 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Cluster RARP

31 40553 245991 164 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Cluster Base

32 229969 1255527 183 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Spanning Tree

33 3665 775463 4 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 STP Hello

34 5661644 775535 7300 0.40% 0.32% 0.33% 0 STP Queue Handler

35 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 CGMP Forwarding

36 62 127 488 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Malibu STP Adjust

37 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Bridge MIB traps Proc

38 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Critical Bkgnd

39 90 14 6428 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Net Background

40 5 38 131 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Logger

41 182996 1544401 118 0.00% 0.01% 0.00% 0 TTY Background

42 3922903 3847470 1019 0.20% 0.23% 0.23% 0 Per-Second Jobs

43 428343 1544413 277 0.10% 0.03% 0.00% 0 Net Periodic

44 12493 56970 219 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Net Input

45 3781 310510 12 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Compute load avgs

46 564269 25873 21809 0.00% 0.01% 0.00% 0 Per-minute Jobs

47 18026435 2267072 7951 0.40% 1.15% 1.05% 0 IP SNMP

48 205 24 8541 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 SNMP Traps

49 0 1 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 SNMP Timers

[Tsasbrink]

This should not be mutch of a concern as layer 2 switches do not contain not as mutch tables and counters as routers do.

You could obtain some extra memory if you could set the very-big large and huge buffers to 0 with the "buffers {type} permanent 0" command if you use only ethernet framing on the switch.

[aashish.c]

Hi,

Can please send the output of "sh proc mem" and " sh run" so that we can find out which processes are eating up memories.

There must be SNMP strings and broadcasts in the vlans which might be consuming memory.

Whatever vlans you dont need on this switch, just deletthem from vlan databse and also enable VTP pruning in the network so that un-necessary broadcast of vlans will not pass through the switch.

Kindly update

Thaks

Aashish C