Re: How do you detect memory issues ?

From: Mladen Gogala <gogala.mladen_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2018 01:26:50 -0500
Message-ID: <ed06b3f0-8f76-1b46-e8d6-2e2a76e095d8_at_gmail.com>



Hi Kyle,

You are talking about vmstat. I prefer sar. Here is the output of sar -B 3 3:

mgogala_at_umajor:~$ sar -B 3 3
Linux 4.15.0-42-generic (umajor)     12/06/2018 _x86_64_    (8 CPU)

01:10:34 AM  pgpgin/s pgpgout/s   fault/s  majflt/s pgfree/s pgscank/s pgscand/s pgsteal/s    %vmeff
01:10:37 AM  23049.33   3421.33     16.00      0.00 81.33      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00
01:10:40 AM  19186.67      1.33    102.67      0.00 116.00     

0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00
01:10:43 AM     14.67   5064.00  32142.67      0.00 25249.00      
0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00
Average:     14083.56   2828.89  10753.78      0.00 8482.11



The important stats are majflts/s, which means that pages had to be read from disk and pgsteal/s, which denotes the number of the modified pages backed up and reclaimed as "free". In this context "free" doesn't mean empty, the page being free means that the page has a valid backup. Page stealing definitel and paging out (pgpgout/s) definitely means that there is a memory problem. On Red Hat systems, sar is available in the sysstat package. Another good indication that something is wrong is large proportion of kernel mode cpu time, as shown by top.  Also, "top" is a good indicator because it shows the swap usage. If the swap usage keeps growing, there is a trouble with memory. Regards

On 12/5/18 7:44 PM, kyle Hailey wrote:
> One of those questions that seems like it should have been nailed down
> 20 years ago but it still seems lack a clear answer
>
> How do you detect memory issues ?
>
> I always used "*_po" or "paged outs_*". Now on Amazon Linux I don't
> see "po" but there is "bo" (blocks written out). In  past, at least on
> OSF & Ultrix, page outs were a sign of needed memory that was written
> out to disk and when I needed that memory it would take a big
> performance hit to read it in. Thus "po" was a good canary on the coal
> mine. Any consistent values over over say 10 were a sign.
>
> Some people use "*_scan rate_*" but I never found that as easy to
> interpret as page outs. Again what values would you use
>
> Some suggest using freeable memory as a yardstick where freeable is 
> "free" + "cached"  or MemFree + Cached + Inactive. Even in this case
> what would you use for values to alert on?
>
> I've always ignored swap stats as if you are swapping it is too late.
>
> What  do you use to detect memory issues ?
>
> Kyle

-- 
Mladen Gogala
Database Consultant
Tel: (347) 321-1217


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Received on Thu Dec 06 2018 - 07:26:50 CET

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