How to Check Memory Usage on Linux VPS Server

There are lots of way to check the memory usage on Linux Virtual Private Server. In this article I will explain some command list to check the memory usage of vps.

Check Memory Usage

Follow the below command to check memory usage on vps server.

1. Using /proc/meminfo command

Run the below command to check memory usage:

# cat /proc/meminfo

You will get some output like below:

MemTotal:        1030888 kB
MemFree:          710372 kB
Buffers:           36444 kB
Cached:           191484 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:           180552 kB
Inactive:         104976 kB
Active(anon):      58048 kB
Inactive(anon):     2124 kB
Active(file):     122504 kB
Inactive(file):   102852 kB
Unevictable:           0 kB
Mlocked:               0 kB
HighTotal:        141256 kB
HighFree:            280 kB
LowTotal:         889632 kB
LowFree:          710092 kB
SwapTotal:       2064376 kB
SwapFree:        2064376 kB
Dirty:              1388 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:         57628 kB
Mapped:            16512 kB
Shmem:              2564 kB
Slab:              21372 kB
SReclaimable:      15292 kB
SUnreclaim:         6080 kB
KernelStack:        1192 kB
PageTables:         1712 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     2579820 kB
Committed_AS:     158252 kB
VmallocTotal:     122880 kB
VmallocUsed:        4264 kB
VmallocChunk:     111800 kB
HugePages_Total:       0
HugePages_Free:        0
HugePages_Rsvd:        0
HugePages_Surp:        0
Hugepagesize:       2048 kB
DirectMap4k:       10232 kB
DirectMap2M:      897024 kB

2. Using free -m command

Run the below command:

# free -m

You will get some output like below:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1006        317        689          0         36        190
-/+ buffers/cache:         90        916
Swap:         2015          0       2015
[root@centos62 ~]#

3. Using top command

Follow the below command:

# top

You will get some output like below:

Tasks:  84 total,   1 running,  83 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.5%us,  2.4%sy,  0.0%ni, 96.0%id,  0.8%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.2%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   1030888k total,   324996k used,   705892k free,    37324k buffers
Swap:  2064376k total,        0k used,  2064376k free,   194916k cached

4. Using vmstat command

Run below command:

# vmstat

You will get some output like below:

procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu-----
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   cs us sy id wa st
 0  0      0 701072  38236 198804    0    0    18    23   88   97  1  3 96  1  0