Linux check what is swapping

How To Check Swap Usage Size and Utilization in Linux

H ow do I check swap (paging) usage under Linux operating systems using command bash/ksh line options? How do I check swap usage size on Linux operating system?

Swap space (also known as paging) is nothing but computer memory management involving swapping regions of memory to and from storage. You can see swap usage summary by device using any one of the following commands. You may have to login as root user to use the following commands.

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	Yes
Requirements	None
Est. reading time	5m

The maximum useful size of a swap area depends on the architecture and the kernel version. For Linux kernels after v2.3.3+ there is no such limitation on swap size.

Check swap usage size and utilization in Linux

The procedure to check swap space usage and size in Linux is as follows:

1. Open a terminal application.
2. To see swap size in Linux, type the command: swapon -s .
3. You can also refer to the /proc/swaps file to see swap areas in use on Linux.
4. Type free -m to see both your ram and your swap space usage in Linux.
5. Finally, one can use the top or htop command to look for swap space Utilization on Linux too.

How to Check Swap Space in Linux using /proc/swaps file

Type the following cat command to see total and used swap size:
# cat /proc/swaps
Sample outputs:

Another option is to type the grep command as follows:
grep Swap /proc/meminfo

Look for swap space in Linux using swapon command

Type the following command to show swap usage summary by device
# swapon -s
Sample outputs:

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Use free command to monitor swap space usage

Use the free command as follows:
# free -g
# free -k
# free -m
Sample outputs:

See swap size in Linux using vmstat command

Type the following vmstat command:
# vmstat
# vmstat 1 5
Sample outputs:

Note down the following output from swap field:

1. si: Amount of memory swapped in from disk (/s).
2. so: Amount of memory swapped to disk (/s).

top/atop/htop/glances command

Type the following commands:
# atop
# htop
# top
# glances
Sample outputs from top command:

Sample outputs from htop command:

Fig.01: Linux: Swap Memory Usage Command

Linux Find Out What Process Are Using Swap Space

Try smem command:
smem
OR
top

Linux GUI tool to monitor swap space size and usage

Try Gnome or KDE system monitor tool. For example, the GNOME System Monitor shows you what programs are running and how much processor time, memory (including paging/swap space size), and disk space are being used.

Conclusion

This page showed you how to check for swap space size and utilization in Linux. If you see a large percentage of the swap space utilization, then it is time to add more physical RAM to the Linux system. Another option is to increase swap space by adding a swap file on Linux. Please see the following resources for more info:

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Linux Find Out What Process Are Using Swap Space

T he top and free command display the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the server. How do I determine which process is using swap space under Linux operating systems? How do I find out swap space usage of a particular process such as memcached?

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Intermediate
Root privileges	Yes
Requirements	Linux with smem and /proc
Est. reading time	6 minutes

You can use the any one of the following techniques but keep in mind that because of shared pages, there is no reliable way to get this information [ 1]

1. /proc/meminfo – This file reports statistics about memory usage on the system. It is used by free to report the amount of free and used memory (both physical and swap) on the system as well as the shared memory and buffers used by the kernel. You can also use free, vmstat and other tools to find out the same information.
2. /proc/$/smaps , /proc/$/status , and /proc/$/stat : Use these files to find information about memory, pages and swap used by each process using its PID.
3. smem – This command (python script) reports memory usage with shared memory divided proportionally.

Finding out process ID and swap usage

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To see swap space used by memcached (PID # 48440), enter (number #2):
# grep —color VmSwap /proc/48440/status
Sample outputs (number #4):

Or the following awk command (number #3):
# awk ‘/VmSwap/‘ /proc/48440/status
Sample outputs (number #4):

Fig.01: Finding out memcached process swap usage on Linux

Listing all process swap space usage

Type the following bash for loop command to see swap space usage per process:

Type the following command to sort out output:

Say hello to smem

The smem command reports physical memory usage, taking shared memory pages into account. Unshared memory is reported as the USS (Unique Set Size). Shared memory is divided evenly among the processes sharing that memory. The unshared memory (USS) plus a process’s proportion of shared memory is reported as the PSS (Proportional Set Size). The USS and PSS only include physical memory usage. They do not include memory that has been swapped out to disk. Memory can be reported by process, by user, by mapping, or system-wide. Both text mode and graphical output are available.

Installation

To install smem [ 2] type the following command under Debian / Ubuntu Linux:
$ sudo apt-get install smem
RHEL / CentOS Linux user type the following command:
$ wget https://www.selenic.com/smem/download/smem-1.4.tar.gz
$ tar xvf smem-1.4.tar.gz
# cp /tmp/smem-1.2/smem /usr/local/bin/
# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/smem

How do I use smem command?

To see basic process information, enter:
# smem
Sample outputs:

To see library-oriented view, enter:
# smem -m
To see user-oriented view, enter:
# smem -u
Sample outputs:

To see systemwide memory usage summary pass the -w option:
# smem -w
Sample outputs:

To see system view
# smem -R 8G -K /path/to/vmlinux/on/disk -w
To see totals and percentages, enter:
# smem -t -p
Sample outputs:

Options

Type the following command to see all other supported options:
# smem —help
Sample outputs:

A note about top command

Type the top command as root:
# top
To sort process as per swap page usage (SWAP = VIRT – RES) type capital O (option) followed by p (small p ) and [Enter] key:

Fig.02 top command – sored process by swap usage (click to enlarge)

References:

It is not possible to get the exact size of used swap space of a process. The top command fakes this information by making SWAP = VIRT – RES, but that is not a good metric, because other stuff such as video memory counts on VIRT as well (for example: top says my X process is using 81M of swap, but it also reports my system as a whole is using only 2M of swap. Therefore, I will not add a similar Swap column to htop because I don’t know a reliable way to get this information (actually, I don’t think it’s possible to get an exact number, because of shared pages).

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8 Useful Commands to Monitor Swap Space Usage in Linux

Memory management is an essential aspect of every System Administrator to improve the performance of a Linux system. It is always a good practice to monitor swap space usage in Linux to ensure that your system operates relative to its memory demands.

8 Commands to Check Linux Swap Space Usage

Therefore in this article we are going to look at ways to monitor swap space usage in a Linux systems.

What is Swap space?

Swap space is a restricted amount of physical memory that is allocated for use by the operating system when available memory has been fully utilized. It is memory management that involves swapping sections of memory to and from physical storage.

On most distributions of Linux, it is recommended that you set swap space when installing the operating system. The amount of swap space you can set for your Linux system may depend on the architecture and kernel version.

How do I check Swap space usage in Linux?

We shall look at different commands and tools that can help you to monitor your swap space usage in your Linux systems as follows:

1. Using the swapon Command

This command helps you to specify the devices on which paging and swapping will be done and we shall look at few important options.

To view all devices marked as swap in the /etc/fstab file you can use the —all option. Though devices that are already working as swap space are skipped.

If you want to view a summary of swap space usage by device, use the —summary option as follows.

Use —help option to view help information or open the manpage for more usage options.

2. Using /proc/swaps which is equivalent to swapon

The /proc filesystem is a very special virtual filesystem in Linux. It is also referred to as a process information pseudo-file system.

It actually does not contain ‘real’ files but runtime system information, for example system memory, devices mounted, hardware configuration and many more. Therefore you can also refer to it as a control and information base for the kernel.

To understand more about this filesystem read our article: Understanding /proc File System in Linux.

To check swap usage information, you can view the /proc/swaps file using the cat utility.

3. Using ‘free’ Command

The free command is used to display the amount of free and used system memory. Using the free command with -h option, which displays output in a human readable format.

From the output above, you can see that the last line provides information about the system swap space. For more usage and examples of free command can be found at: 10 free Command to Check Memory Usage in Linux.

4. Using top Command

The top command displays processor activity of your Linux system, tasks managed by kernel in real-time. To understand how the top command works, read this article: 12 top Commands to Check Linux Process Activity

To check swap space usage with the help of ‘top’ command run the following command.

Check Swap Space Using Top Command

5. Using atop Command

The atop command is a system monitor that reports about activities of various processes. But importantly it also shows information about free and used memory space.

Atop Check Swap Usage

To know more about how to install and use atop command in Linux, read this article: Monitor Logging Activity of Linux System Processes

6. Using htop Command

The htop command is used to view processes in an interactive mode and also displays information about memory usage.

Htop Check Swap Usage

For more information regarding installation and usage about htop command, read this article: Htop – Interactive Linux Process Monitoring

7. Using the Glances Command

This is a cross-platform system monitoring tool that displays information about running processes, cpu load, storage space usage, memory usage, swap space usage and many more.

Glances Check Swap Usage

For more information regarding installation and usage about glances command, read this article: Glances – An Advanced Real Time Linux System Monitoring Tool

8. Using the vmstat Command

This command is used to display information about virtual memory statistics. To install vmstat on your Linux system, you can read the article below and see more usage examples:

VmStat Check Swap Usage

You need to take note of the following in the swap field from the output of this command.

1. si: Amount of memory swapped in from disk (s).
2. so: Amount of memory swapped to disk (s).

Summary

These are easy methods one can use and follow to monitor swap space usage and hope this article was helpful. In case you need help or want to add any information relating to memory management in Linux systems, please post a comment. Stay connected to Tecmint.

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