How to calculate the actual used MP memory
124659
Created On 01/14/20 23:54 PM - Last Modified 07/22/25 05:13 AM
Objective
The aim of this article is to show how to calculate the actual used management plane memory on the firewall.
Environment
- NGFW
- PAN-OS
Procedure
In 8.0 and below:
- To view real-time memory and CPU usage, run the command:
show system resources
- To calculate the used memory:
Used Mem= (used)-(Buffers +Cached)
Sample example is provided below:
In this example we see that used memory is 3594124k.
2020-01-10 15:13:42.847 +0800 --- top_summary top - 15:13:42 up 52 days, 2:51, 0 users, load average: 0.46, 0.41, 0.45 Tasks: 114 total, 3 running, 111 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 6.4%us, 3.5%sy, 0.7%ni, 88.6%id, 0.4%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.4%si, 0.0%st Mem: 3849872k total, 3594124k used, 255748k free, 74612k buffers Swap: 3056660k total, 797204k used, 2259456k free, 1486208k cached
- Used Mem = 3594124k used - (74612k buffers + 1486208k cached)
- Hence, for the above Firewall Used Mem = 2033304K
- From the calculation we see that the actual used memory is 2033304K .
In 9.0 or later:
- To view real-time memory and CPU usage, run the command:
show system resources
- To calculate the used memory:
Used Mem= (total)-(avail Mem)
Sample example is provided below:
admin@PA-VM> show system resources
top - 09:54:13 up 37 days, 15:49, 1 user, load average: 0.37, 0.61, 0.75
Tasks: 244 total, 1 running, 243 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 12.5 us, 6.2 sy, 0.0 ni, 78.1 id, 0.0 wa, 3.1 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
MiB Mem : 6455.7 total, 120.1 free, 2547.3 used, 3788.3 buff/cache
MiB Swap: 4000.0 total, 2752.2 free, 1247.8 used. 1217.4 avail Mem
(snip)- In this example we can see that total is 6455.7M and avail Mem is 1217.4M.
- Used Mem = 6455.7 total - 1217.4 avail Mem
- Hence, for the above Firewall Used Mem = 5238.3
- From the calculation we see that the actual used memory is 5238.3M.
*Memory - e, E,
To change the view of the memory from Kib, Mib, Gib, Tib to Pib.top - 23:54:26 up 8 min, 1 user, load average: 1.09, 2.95, 1.81Tasks: 241 total, 2 running, 239 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie%Cpu(s): 10.2 us, 4.6 sy, 0.4 ni, 81.8 id, 0.0 wa, 2.7 hi, 0.4 si, 0.0 stGiB Mem : 6.3 total, 0.2 free, 2.8 used, 3.3 buff/cacheGiB Swap: 3.9 total, 3.6 free, 0.3 used. 0.8 avail Mem