About
Free is a linux command that display amount of free and used memory in the system
[root@ebs121 ~]# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3042768 427420 2615348 0 49816 301648
-/+ buffers/cache: 75956 2966812
Swap: 2031608 0 2031608
- The Mem: row displays physical memory utilization,
- The Swap: row displays the utilization of the system swap space,
- The -/+ buffers/cache: row displays the amount of physical memory currently devoted to system buffers (Linux Buffer)
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Syntax
free [-b|-k|-m|-g] [-l] [-o] [-t] [-s delay] [-c count] [-V]
Where:
- -b,-k,-m,-g show output in bytes, KB, MB, or GB
- -l show detailed low and high memory statistics
- -o use old format (no -/+buffers/cache line)
- -t display total for RAM + swap
- -s update every [delay] seconds
- -c update [count] times
- -V display version information and exit
Example
free -g | awk '/Mem:/ {print "Physical Memory: " $2 " GB."} /cache:/ {print "Resident: " $3 " GB."}'
Physical Memory: 266 GB.
Resident: 217 GB.
Documentation / Reference
- For more information about how to interpret the output of this command correctly, see SAP Note 1382721.