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ucasFL translating free – A Standard Command to Check Memory Usage Statistics (Free & Used) in Linux
We all knows, most of the Servers (Including world Top Super Computers are running in Linux) are running in Linux platform on IT infrastructure because Linux is more flexible compare with other operating systems. Other operating systems required reboot for small small changes & patch updates but Linux systems doesn’t required reboot except critical patch updates.
One of the big challenge for Linux administrator to maintain the system up and running without any downtime. To managing memory utilization on Linux is another challenging task for administrator, free is one of the standard & widely used command, to analyze Memory Statistics (Free & Used Memory) in Linux. Today we are going to cover free command with useful options.
Suggested Articles :
- smem – Linux Memory Reporting/Statistics Tool
- vmstat – A Standard Nifty Tool to Report Virtual Memory Statistics
What’s Free Command
free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the system, as well as the buffers and cachesused by the kernel. The information is gathered by parsing /proc/meminfo.
Display System Memory
Run the free command without any option to display system memory, including total amount of free, used, buffers, caches& swap.
# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32869744 25434276 7435468 0 412032 23361716
-/+ buffers/cache: 1660528 31209216
Swap: 4095992 0 4095992
The output has three columns.
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Column-1 : Indicates Total memory, used memory, free memory, shared memory (mostly used by tmpfs (Shmem in /proc/meminfo)), memory used for buffers, cached contents memory size.
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Total : Total installed memory (MemTotal in /proc/meminfo)
-
Used : Used memory (calculated as total – free + buffers + cache)
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Free : Unused memory (MemFree in /proc/meminfo)
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Shared : Memory used (mostly) by tmpfs (Shmem in /proc/meminfo)
-
Buffers : Memory used by kernel buffers (Buffers in /proc/meminfo)
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Cached : Memory used by the page cache and slabs (Cached and SReclaimable in /proc/meminfo)
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Column-2 : Indicates buffers/cache used & free.
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Column-3 : Indicates Total swap memory (SwapTotal in /proc/meminfo), free (SwapFree in /proc/meminfo)) & used swap memory.
Display Memory in MB
By default free command output display memory in KB - Kilobytes which is bit confusion to most of the administrator (Many of us convert the output to MB, to understand the size, when the system has more memory). To avoid the confusion, add -m option with free command to get instant output with MB - Megabytes.
# free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32099 24838 7261 0 402 22814
-/+ buffers/cache: 1621 30477
Swap: 3999 0 3999
How to check, how much free ram I really have From the above output based on used & free column, you may think, you have very low free memory, when it’s really just 10%, How ?
Total Actual Available RAM = (Total RAM – column2 used) Total RAM = 32099 Actual used RAM = -1621
Total actual available RAM = 30477
If you have latest distribution, you have a option to see the actual free memory called available, for older distribution, look at the free column in the row that says -/+ buffers/cache.
How to check, how much RAM actually used From the above output based on used & free column, you may think, you have utilized morethan 95% memory.
Total Actual used RAM = column1 used – (column1 buffers + column1 cached) Used RAM = 24838 Used Buffers = 402 Used Cache = 22814
Total Actual used RAM = 1621
Display Memory in GB
By default free command output display memory in KB - Kilobytes which is bit confusion to most of the administrator, so we can use the above option to get the output in MB - Megabytes but when the server has huge memory (morethan 100 GB or 200 GB), the above option also get confuse, so in this situation, we can add -g option with free command to get instant output with GB - Gigabytes.
# free -g
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 31 24 7 0 0 22
-/+ buffers/cache: 1 29
Swap: 3 0 3
Display Total Memory Line
By default free command output comes with three columns (Memory, Buffers/Cache & Swap). To display consolidated total in separate line (Total (Mem+Swap), Used (Mem+(Used – Buffers/Cache)+Swap) & Free (Mem+(Used – Buffers/Cache)+Swap), add -t option with free command.
# free -t
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32869744 25434276 7435468 0 412032 23361716
-/+ buffers/cache: 1660528 31209216
Swap: 4095992 0 4095992
Total: 36965736 27094804 42740676
Run free with delay for better statistic
By default free command display single statistics output which is not enough to troubleshoot further so, add delay (delay is the delay between updates in seconds) which capture the activity periodically. If you want to run free with 2 second delay, just use the below command (If you want more delay you can change as per your wish).
The following command will run every 2 seconds until you exit.
# free -s 2
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25935844 6913548 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1120624 31728768
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25935288 6914104 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1120068 31729324
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25934968 6914424 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1119748 31729644
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
Run free with delay & counts
Alternatively you can run free command with delay and specific counts, once it reach the given counts then exit automatically.
The following command will run every 2 seconds with 5 counts then exit automatically.
# free -s 2 -c 5
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25931052 6918340 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1115832 31733560
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25931192 6918200 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1115972 31733420
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25931348 6918044 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1116128 31733264
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25931316 6918076 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1116096 31733296
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25931308 6918084 188 182424 24632796
-/+ buffers/cache: 1116088 31733304
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
Human readable format
To print the human readable output, add h option with free command, which will print more detailed output compare with other options like m & g.
# free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 2.0G 1.6G 138M 20M 188M 161M
Swap: 2.0G 1.8G 249M
Split Buffers & Cached memory output
By default Buffers/Cached memory output comes together. To split Buffers & Cached memory output, add -w option with free command. (This option is available on version 3.3.12).
Note : See the above output, Buffers/Cached comes together.
# free -wh
total used free shared buffers cache available
Mem: 2.0G 1.6G 137M 20M 8.1M 183M 163M
Swap: 2.0G 1.8G 249M
Show Low and High Memory Statistics
By default free command output comes without Low and High Memory Statistics. To display Show Low and High Memory Statistics, add -l option with free command.
# free -l
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32849392 25931336 6918056 188 182424 24632808
Low: 32849392 25931336 6918056
High: 0 0 0
-/+ buffers/cache: 1116104 31733288
Swap: 20970492 0 20970492
Read more about free
If you want to know more option which is available for free, simply navigate to man page.
# free --help
or
# man free
via: http://www.2daygeek.com/free-command-to-check-memory-usage-statistics-in-linux/
作者：MAGESH MARUTHAMUTHU 译者：译者ID 校对：校对者ID