Hello all ,

As indicated in the title of my question , it is about my server's memory consumption .
Well to come to the bottom of this and post a simple question :
free -m
displays
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3959 3829 129 0 158 2656
-/+ buffers/cache: 1014 2944
Swap: 3999 4 3995

IS this ok or not ok ?
The thing is that looking around in google, i am supper confused ;
active, inactive, physical, virtual, swap, cache, wired ....
there must be some simple explanation for me to tell if my system is ok or not. what should i keep an eye on. I would really like to understand this once and for all, it can't be impossible
Other information :
System : Red Hat 4.1.2-45

Yes it's fine

It would help if you would post your output in [code][/code] tags to preserve formatting (namely columns) though.

In short, Linux uses unused memory as a disk cache. The idea is that if the memory isn't being used for programs, it might as well be used for something useful. This is why your output shows almost all of your memory being used with nothing free and a huge cache.

This accelerates file reads by loading commonly-used files into the cache, so the next time the file is read it just comes straight from RAM instead of having to be re-read off of the disk. This cache will be dumped instantly when the memory is required for a program, however, so as far as your programs are concerned it's not really used. This is the second line in the output, "-/+ buffers/cache". Look at the free column on that line (2944) - this is how much memory you have available for your progams, considering the cache can be dumped immediately if needed.

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Side Note: /proc/version does not tell you what version of Red Hat you are running; it only tells you the kernel version. It also includes the fact that the kernel was compiled with version 4.1.2-45 of gcc on RedHat. If you want to know the Red Hat version do:

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Hello suicidaleggroll, smallpond thank you for the answers and tips above, I think what you said to me approves with what -i overall found in the internet-.

Read linuxatemyram.