What is the amount of memory RECOMMENDED to be allocated to the Service Console though tthe default is 272 MB?

[ChrisLopes]

What is the amount of memory RECOMMENDED to be allocated to the Service Console though tthe default is 272 MB?

[madda]

I recently went on the Install and Configure course, and the instructor recommended setting it to the max of 800MB so that it had plenty of memory for HA/VMotion and other tasks the service console performs

[eliot]

i tend to increase it to around 500mb. I have seen it run low on memory when using ha.

[J-D]

So it's also used for HA and VMotion? That's good to know. I know it is used by UPS agents and backup agents and management agents...so every software you install on top of the basic install.

The poster will find lots of posts of people changing the default settings so I'll just say I make the swap space 1600GB which is twice the 800MB max size of service console memory. That way I can always easily change the service console memory without having to reinstall in order to make the swap space larger.

As VMware has chosen 272 MB, I guess that is the recommended setting. I'd only change it when you are experiencing issues. If you type "free" and notice a lot of swap space in use, then you can increase its size.

HTH.

[java_cat33]

I'd recommend 800mb - I've seen many articles recommending this amount and have spoken to VMware support regarding issues and this is one thing they quite often check and recommend if not set.

[dconvery]

Same here...make the swap partition 1600MB and the memory 800MB. It requires a reboot to change the RAM later and you cannot change the swap partition easily.

Dave

[VirtualKenneth]

Agreed I use the 1600 MB swap partition as well.

However I increase the Service Console memory to 512 MB by default. Maybe it's time to review this value, but on the other hand I never had problems indicating that 512 was to low.

[dconvery]

Yeah..I should have clarified this. 800MB is recommended if you plan on using 3rd party management agents, etc. 512MB is plenty if you are just using HA/DRS and no agents. An honestly, with the seemingly never ending issues with management agents in ESX, I don't even recommend using them any more. The latest version of VC using CIM to monitor hardware, so I don't see a need for "fat" agents.

[VirtualKenneth]

I normally only install the HP Management Agents on ESX console and nothing more.

Even with HP Management Agents I have enough memory while using the 512 setting.

[riker82]

are u using iscsi or nas storage? they involves so much service console resources....

[depping]

Nowadays I usually max out on swap and sc mem: 800 for the memory and 2000mb for the swap.

Duncan

My virtualisation blog:

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[Bastien_P]

I had some issue deleting huuge snapshot... made my service console freeze. Made a call to helpdesk and they suggested to raise the memory to 800mb. It might depends of the number of third party things you run in addition but unless you are very short in memory on your server.. Raising can just help...

[Leafy911 · Accepted solution]

I usually make it 500MB, but make the swap file 1600MB. This takes into account that the max. size of the service console is 800MB and the swap is going to be twice that.

Regards

Leafy911

(Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)

[Kahonu84]

Aloha - How can you tell if you're under-allocating and how do you change the memory amount after the fact???

Mahalo, Bill

[dconvery]

You can do this in the configuration tab for the host. Under memory, click properties and change it. You will need to reboot for the changes to take effect.

See the screenshot

[jreininger]

I had a VMware support tech tell me to use the 'free' command in the service console.

Keep in mind if your in a prety low ram host (say 8g or 16g) going from 272 to 800 is going to eat up like 1/16 or 1/32 of all your free ram on that host. I dont think the SC will share unused ram w/ other 'true' customer created VMs (correct?)

He said if the service console swap space was >0 and there was a medium amout of VMs on the host to go to 512m. If there a ton of VMs to use 800m. On this test box you can see 8736 is being used (in bold red) in Swap so I sould increase this host to 512m, and reboot the host.

login as: superbad

superbad@192.168.1.200's password:

Last login: Tue Aug 26 16:25:20 2008 from 192.168.1.105

superbad@vm01 superbad$ su -l root

Password:

root@vm01 root# free

total used free shared buffers cached

Mem: 268564 259576 8988 0 58268 49940

-/+ buffers/cache: 151368 117196

Swap: 554168 8736 545432

root@vm01 root#

[Bastien_P]

For changing .. from the VIclient you go on the host, configuration, memory then properties and you have the option to change the amount of memory .... (will be active at the next reboot of the host..).

[J-D]

On a ESX 3.5u2 with 272 MB service console memory and only the default 544 MB swap, I tried changing the service console memory to 512 MB and I was able too. I didn't reboot though and returned to 272 MB.

I wonder if you HAVE to change the swap space if you "just" want to try a bigger service console. Swap space is needed for dumping memory but 544 MB is larger than 512...it's just good practice to have twice the space I guess...of course I didn't dare to reboot this production server. Anyone else tried this?

I am just thinking about installatinss where you didn't change the swap space and VMware support tells you to change the service console memory to see if your problem goes away.

[dconvery]

You need to reboot after changing RAM settings or they will not take affect. As for swap, you will be able to assign more RAM than the amount of swap space.

[Leafy911]

What is the consequence of having a swap file less than twice the size of the memory?

Regards

Leafy911

(Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)