proc.mem: is it really useful to monitor ?

[djinn_fr22]

Hi,

I just would like to discuss on the forum the usage of proc.mem.

For example, if I use something like proc.mem[zabbix_agentd], it returns 27 MB.

But when you do a ps

$ ps aux|head -1;ps aux|grep zabbix
PID %CPU %MEM   VSZ  RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
 4247  0.0  0.0  1392  588 ?        SN   09:37   0:00 /bin/zabbix_agentd 
4248  0.0  0.0  9008 1108 ?        SN   09:37   0:00 /bin/zabbix_agentd 
4249  0.0  0.0  9008 1108 ?        SN   09:37   0:00 /bin/zabbix_agentd
4250  0.0  0.0  9012  928 ?        SN   09:37   0:00 /bin/zabbix_agentd

So basically proc.mem returns the value of virtual memory (VSZ) and not the memory use in RAM (RSS).

From a monitoring point of view, I think it will be more interresting to have the consumption of the real memory than the virtual memory over time.

By looking at that, you can see the trends of the process, and for example see if it's leaking. The virtual memory can be monitored anyway by looking at the size of the swap of the system overall.

What do you think ?

Thanks

[James Wells]

Greetings,

From a monitoring point of view, I think it will be more interresting to have the consumption of the real memory than the virtual memory over time.

Nice catch. I hadn't noticed that before, but you are correct. At the same time though, I think an even better way to do it would be to give us the ability to choose between VSZ and RSS, and the total of the two.

[djinn_fr22]

It would be great if we can have that.

Another thing I saw on the forum was that people were asking about CPU consumption of a process.
I think it will as well a really good feature.

For people that needs this kind of info, it's posssible on linux to UserParameter with a call in a perl script to the library Sys::Statistics::Linux.

But I think seeing Zabbix agent as a framework, it will be much better to have this kind of info out of the box.

James, do you know what the roadmap for the agentd ?
My feeling is that it has been freezed for a while.
Are there any plans to had more system metrics ?

My wish list:
- CPU io wait
- number of CPU
- ps (cpu, memory)
- size of directory

I hope I could do it myself, but I am not good enough in C++. So I stick with Userparameter and perl

Thanks

[tronite]

Greetings,

Nice catch. I hadn't noticed that before, but you are correct. At the same time though, I think an even better way to do it would be to give us the ability to choose between VSZ and RSS, and the total of the two.

What is VSZ and RSS (remember we are not all as well experience so have mercy!)?

[djinn_fr22]

Hi,

RSS is the part which is in physical memory.

VSZ is the virtual memory size of the process, part of which may be in physical memory and part of which may be swapped to disk.

[sterno]

The virtual size isn't just what's resident in memory plus what's paged out to disk. It may also include memory-mapped files and devices, shared memory segments, shared library code, etc.

[BusteR81]

so what now?

i agree that RSS is more useful then VSS. however having both to monitor is definetly a plus. if i wanna monitor RSS using v1.4, what can i do ??

cheers

[BusteR81]

confirm virtual mem only ?

hi

can anyone double confirm that "proc_mem[ ]" can ONLY monitor the virutal mem for Linux system ? If so, what other alternative do I hav if i wanna monitor the Real mem of process in Linux

[pedrich]

At the moment, it looks like the easiest way to check RSS centrally will be with a system.run command, and just parse the information you're returning yourself to grab what you want:
ps aux |grep <process> |grep -v "grep" |awk '{print $6}'
This assumes you're running a system with BSD compatible 'ps' syntax.
Let's hope a measure for RSS value gets added soon.

[pedrich]

The other option would be to modify the source to check
/proc/<pid>/status: VmRSS
instead of whatever it's returning now.

I'm not desperate enough yet to do that, however. I can wait for it to get added to the standard build.

[raddy]

Hello Everybody

Sorry for refreshing a very old thread.
But is there any new methods to retrieve Process's Physical Memory Usage and Process's cpu utilization in Zabbix 1.6x?

If we still need to relie on User Parameter, then suggest a good one.

[chriso]

Again..reviving an old thread. Has this been addressed?

[eugene.istomin]

+1 for ps(mem, cpu)

Very useful feature.

[jvandenbroek]

Too bad this still has not been addressed in the current version, it's a really wanted feature!

[CeeEss]

another +1 for proc.mem[VIRT/RES/SHR]