Machines getting too big...

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Solaris hosts.
Post Reply
dean.halbeisen
Posts: 1
Joined: 19. Feb 2011, 17:40
Primary OS: Solaris
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: windows xp

Machines getting too big...

Post by dean.halbeisen »

Though I have configured these windows xp virtual machines to use 2GB RAM, they still use two times more than 2GB.

Looking at prstat 1 on both machines I see something like this:

Machine 1

PID USERNAME SIZE RSS STATE PRI NICE TIME CPU PROCESS/NLWP
2015 root 2406M 2376M sleep 49 0 1:47:08 2.0% VirtualBox/17
2027 root 5364M 5334M sleep 49 0 1:23:02 1.1% VirtualBox/17
2021 root 2775M 2745M sleep 49 0 1:14:28 1.1% VirtualBox/16
2022 root 2915M 2885M sleep 49 0 1:11:42 1.0% VirtualBox/17
2026 root 5377M 5347M sleep 49 0 1:12:23 0.9% VirtualBox/16
2023 root 3328M 3298M sleep 49 0 1:33:30 0.8% VirtualBox/17
2025 root 4905M 4875M sleep 49 0 0:53:00 0.8% VirtualBox/17
2024 root 5104M 5074M sleep 49 0 1:12:42 0.8% VirtualBox/16

Machine 2

PID USERNAME SIZE RSS STATE PRI NICE TIME CPU PROCESS/NLWP
1402 root 3460M 3432M sleep 49 0 1:50:41 1.1% VirtualBox/17
1404 root 3410M 3382M sleep 49 0 1:02:19 1.0% VirtualBox/17
1418 root 3015M 2988M sleep 49 0 1:21:12 1.0% VirtualBox/17
1406 root 4972M 4945M sleep 49 0 1:09:27 1.0% VirtualBox/17
1408 root 4973M 4946M sleep 49 0 1:15:58 1.0% VirtualBox/17
1422 root 5762M 5735M sleep 49 0 0:53:40 0.9% VirtualBox/17
1414 root 5615M 5588M sleep 49 0 1:19:30 0.9% VirtualBox/17
1410 root 5709M 5682M sleep 49 0 1:18:03 0.9% VirtualBox/17
1416 root 3268M 3241M sleep 49 0 1:13:22 0.9% VirtualBox/17
1420 root 5370M 5343M sleep 49 0 1:15:34 0.9% VirtualBox/17
1412 root 5227M 5200M run 39 0 1:16:40 0.8% VirtualBox/17
1424 root 5369M 5342M sleep 59 0 1:35:23 0.8% VirtualBox/17

Why are they consuming so much RAM?
rdhalstead
Posts: 52
Joined: 26. Feb 2008, 18:58
Location: Las Vegas

Re: Machines getting too big...

Post by rdhalstead »

I believe the memory available for a virtual machine's use is like the physical ram in a physical machine. You are providing 2GB of "ram" for the vm to use. The vm is actually using >2GB of the physical hosts memory to run. The >2GB is the equivalent of the hardware in a physical machine. Hope this make sense.

Ron Halstead
Post Reply