Table of Contents
Memory Diagnostic Tools for Ubuntu Linux
Here is a curated list of memory diagnostic tools for Linux.
free
To check the Random Access Memory (RAM) and swap space on Ubuntu do this:
free -h
The -h switch means that output should be displayed in a human readable format.
top
Top is our go-to utility for troubleshooting anything Linux related. Always press ‘c’ just after you’ve started top to see the whole path of the running process.
top
htop
Htop is a prettier alternative to top.
htop
ps
This command shows all processes and memory usage:
ps -eo pmem,pid,user,args
The resultant output will give you the amount of memory used, the process ID of the user using this memory, the actual user, and what the command is executing this process.
proc/meminfo
/proc/meminfo will give you system memory usage totals. Not incredibly useful but another tool in your arsenal.
cat /proc/meminfo
vmstat
Display virtual memory statistics every ten seconds:
vmstat 10
References
- Interesting Stack answer with regards to excessive consumption of memory in MySQL: