Detect memory ballooning from within the affected VM

Question

Is it possible to detect from within a Linux VM that memory is being reclaimed by the memory balloon? I don't think any information about the host is propagated to the VM, so connecting to the host and asking is not an option. I would prefer not to rely on heuristic approach either.

Edit: The reason why I want to know about it from the VM is to raise an alert to the VM's admin, who may not have access to the host, but should nevertheless know about the potential performance degradation.

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 30 '17 at 02:48

12

If you have VMware Tools installed inside the VM then you can find this out with

vmware-toolbox-cmd stat balloon

More info here

(And, well, you must have VMware Tools installed, otherwise ballooning won't work)

edited Jan 30 '17 at 02:48

Sebas

545

answered Jan 17 '15 at 22:31

VFrontDe

1,518

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 16 '15 at 14:55

0

Can't you just see how much vmmemsty.sys is using?

answered Jan 16 '15 at 14:55

Chopper3

101,808

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

0

I'm not sure if it matters if a specific VM is ballooning if you're not willing to view it from the host/cluster/vCenter level. Otherwise, how would you "unballoon" the memory?

See: "Unballooning" RAM that's been ballooned by VMware

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

Community

1

answered Jan 17 '15 at 22:48

ewwhite

201,205

Detect memory ballooning from within the affected VM

3 Answers3