Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 09:11:10 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> To: "Wilkinson, Alex" <alex.wilkinson@dsto.defence.gov.au> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: libmemstat(3) - Library for monitoring kernel memory use Message-ID: <20060606090919.U68996@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <20060606073436.GK27880@squash.dsto.defence.gov.au> References: <C1BBF34889A04C4C8ACEE5C7CC753FDFCCA68E@PNE-HJN-MBX01.wipro.com> <20060606071736.J68996@fledge.watson.org> <20060606073436.GK27880@squash.dsto.defence.gov.au>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tue, 6 Jun 2006, Wilkinson, Alex wrote:
> 0n Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 07:20:39AM +0100, Robert Watson wrote:
>
> >
> >On Tue, 6 Jun 2006 bhuvan.kumarmital@wipro.com wrote:
> >
> >> Saw your tool (memtop) for monitoring kernel memory. I'd like to use a
> >>similar tool for linux, i believe your tool is bsd based. Could you tell
> >>me a similar tool, or perhaps another version of memtop built for linux.
> >>I'd really appreciate you help. Please reply on my email address.
> >
> >You are correct that libmemstat and derived tools currently rely on
> >features present in the FreeBSD kernel. The library provides a general
> >monitoring abstraction over a set of specific kernel memory allocators --
> >specifically, the FreeBSD malloc(9) and uma(9) allocators. It is
> >relatively straight forward to implement that abstraction for other memory
> >allocators, such as user space allocators or kernel allocators from other
> >platforms, but that work has not been done (as far as I know). I'm not
> >aware of specific monitoring tools for the Linux operating system that are
> >able to perform this type of profiling/monitoring, although I presume some
> >sort of kernel memory profiling tool does exist.
>
> Erm, Robert, where does memtop live ? I can find it in ports nor base
> system.
memtop is an experimental monitoring tool based on libmemstat, you can find
the source here:
http://www.watson.org/~robert/freebsd/libmemstat/
Possibly something like this could be integrated into systat, but my ncurses
knowledge is a bit weak, and I've not had a chance to investigate further.
As with vmstat, the interpretation of the output requires a moderate amount of
insight into how the kernel works, so I've been a bit reluctant to push it as
a debugging tool without some more refinement. I think it would be neat if
someone picked it up and did something useful with it, though :-).
Robert N M Watson
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20060606090919.U68996>