Problem running more than one virtual machine (Linux Debian Lenny)

[DaveWut]

Hi guys,

I have VMware Workstation 6.5.3 installed on a Debian Lenny Linux Distribution and while I'm running more than one Virtual machine, Linux take out almost all my memory and put it all in the SWAP, making all my system lagging hard. I've just figured out that under linux, all the memory is not completly allocated to the virtual machine while open like windows does. So I'm wondering if this is the cause of the problem.

I've tried many things to solve the problem but nothing works: setthing up VMware workstation in memory tab to don't allow VM using SWAP, vm.swappiness=15, swapoff -av + swapon -av and retry opening my two virtual machines and each time, while the second virtual machine is open, the same thing happen.

Thanks for your help guys!

Dave

[louyo]

1. How much memory in your system?

2. 32 or 64 bit OS?

3. How much memory is allocated for each machine.

4. What is the setting, in VMWare Workstation preferences, for reserved memory (how much RAM is the system reserving for all running VM's)? In an 8GB system, Ubuntu (64 bit), I hold back 1GB for the system but I rarely run more than 3 or 4 VM's. I almost never see swap file growth.

5. What is the system telling you about memory allocation and swap space, from "free" (top will tell you who is using it).

If the system is running out of memory, it is going to swap no matter the settings in vmx files.

Lou

[DaveWut]

1. How much memory in your system?

4GB

2. 32 or 64 bit OS?

x64 debian Lenny operating system

3. How much memory is allocated for each machine.

My Windows Vista x64 virtual machine : 2GB

My Windows Server 2003 R2 : 1GB

One virtual core for each machines

4. What is the setting, in VMWare Workstation preferences, for reserved memory (how much RAM is the system reserving for all running VM's)? In an 8GB system, Ubuntu (64 bit), I hold back 1GB for the system but I rarely run more than 3 or 4 VM's. I almost never see swap file growth.

Haven't any ideas seriously, I just figured out that once a second virtual machine is open, everything go into the SWAP or almost. Is that possible to tell the system to entirely allocate the memory to the virtual machine once their open like Windows does? BTW my two virtual machine are open now.

5. What is the system telling you about memory allocation and swap space, from "free" (top will tell you who is using it).

See Capture.JPG

Thanks for your help!!

Dave

[louyo]

I am guessing that this was taken after some VM's had been running but were then closed? I shows that swap had been expanded but there is 3100130 bytes free. almost 3G. What does it look like with the VM's open? What does top show allocated to the VM's?

Attached is screen shot of free and top with 4 VM's running. 2 are 1GB, one is 512M and the 4th is 384M. Note that there is some overhead.

Lou

[DaveWut]

The VM's were open during this screen shot. I'm going to do your test tomorrow because it's late now. Otherwise, if it isn't necesary tell me!

Thank you very much for your time in trying to solve my problem!

Dave

[DaveWut]

Once my 4th virtual machine is open, Vmware workstation tells me that I don't have enough physical memory to run it, but when I'm looking to the system monitoring, it tells me that I only use 580 Mo of RAM and 710 Mo of SWAP. WTF?!

Thanks!

Dave

Oh by the way, sorry for my late answer!

[louyo]

>>it tells me that I only use 580 Mo of RAM and 710 Mo of SWAP.

Not sure where you get that. The last entry in your free results seems to be on the wrong line. I see that you only have about 55 meg of RAM unused at the moment you took the "top" snapshot and your swap file use is significant. This implies that you have been swapping.

I would suggest that you put more RAM in the machine, or cut down how much you give the VM's. The total memory available (as shown by top and free) is less than installed because they don't report kernel used RAM (IIRC).

just my $0.02.

Lou

[DaveWut]

Still don't get what's with debian today. Well, I'll show you why I said that everything go into the SWAP. Looks like the GUI system monitoring show somthing completly different than the free command. You can see all that on my screen shot.

So my question is : Where all my god damn memory go? I just don't get it. One virtual machine, and everything's fine, but once the second is open, there we go, he puts everything in the SWAP. I KNOW that debian takes only about 300 MB for him and that two virtual machines will be open including one of 2 GB and the other of 1 GB. So this makes 3.3 GB of used memory. Why everything is taken? I've just recently touch the 1 GB of SWAP.

Thanks for the help!

Dave