Monitoring Free Memory on AIX

[msg83]

Hi,

I'm in the process of implementing monitoring across some of my company's Windows and AIX boxes. In Windows, I've found that the perfmon metric "Available MBytes" (Object: Memory) is a good indicator of memory resource issues. I thought that a good equivalent metric in AIX would be using the "/usr/bin/vmstat 1 2" command and looking at the free memory statistic. What I've found, however, is that some of my AIX boxes have VERY low free memory (some in the rang of 1-2 MB). They seem to be operating ok, so I'm wondering if this an apples-to-apples comparison of the Windows free memory perfmon stat.

Any advice on what would be a good equivalent memory resource indicator on the AIX platform would be a huge help.


Thanks.

 

[RodKnowlton]

It is definitely not apples-to-apples.

AIX uses almost all real memory for either programs or file caching. The "fre" value is the number of memory pages (4KB each) available for immediate use. The virtual memory manager will do its best to keep this value above the setting of minfree in either vmtune or vmo, depending on your version. To watch for memory resource issues over long periods of time, check 'lsps -a' every now and then. If the amount of paging space used continually climbs, something's probably leaking.

- Rod


IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L
CompTIA Linux+
CompTIA Security+

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