Does anyone know why this might be? I'm booting Slackware 14.1 64bit with lilo in an ESX server (4.0.0 build 244038) and on bootup the virtual machine will never see more then 3GB.

loli.conf has append=" vt.default_utf8=0 mem=4096M" and the guest has been assigned 4GB of memory.

central(/usr/src/build/linux): dmesg | grep e820
[ 0.000000] e820: BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x000000000009f7ff] usable
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000009f800-0x000000000009ffff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000000ca000-0x00000000000cbfff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000000dc000-0x00000000000e3fff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000000e8000-0x00000000000fffff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000100000-0x00000000bfeeffff] usable
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000bfef0000-0x00000000bfefefff] ACPI data
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000bfeff000-0x00000000bfefffff] ACPI NVS
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000bff00000-0x00000000bfffffff] usable
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000e0000000-0x00000000efffffff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fec00000-0x00000000fec0ffff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fee00000-0x00000000fee00fff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fffe0000-0x00000000ffffffff] reserved
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000100000000-0x000000013fffffff] usable
[ 0.000000] e820: remove [mem 0x100000000-0xfffffffffffffffe] usable
[ 0.000000] e820: user-defined physical RAM map:
[ 0.000000] e820: update [mem 0x00000000-0x00000fff] usable ==> reserved
[ 0.000000] e820: remove [mem 0x000a0000-0x000fffff] usable
[ 0.000000] e820: last_pfn = 0xc0000 max_arch_pfn = 0x400000000
[ 0.000000] e820: update [mem 0xc0000000-0xffffffff] usable ==> reserved
[ 0.000000] e820: [mem 0xc0000000-0xdfffffff] available for PCI devices
[ 1.388842] e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0x0009f800-0x0009ffff]
[ 1.388844] e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0xbfef0000-0xbfffffff]
central(/usr/src/build/linux):


It is 64 bit:
server(/root): uname -m
x86_64

server(/root): file /sbin/init
/sbin/init: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

For your ESX VM, is the Guest Operating System version set to "Other Linux (32-bit)", or any of the other 32-bit versions?

It should be set to something like "Other Linux (64-bit)".

Hi kenw232

please refer, to the following document on the vmware forum

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mic...rnalId=1014006

The expected memory is expected according to this document, look especially at the bottom.

This is the strange part. Its both. When the guest VM is off, it says "Other Linux (64-bit)". But when I turn it on after it boots up ESX actually switches it to Other 32 Bit with the 3MB memory limit. I have no idea why it does this switch. I'm running Kernel 3.10.18 - ESX simple doesn't support something that new? How do I force it to be 64 bit when running? I've attached a screenshot.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Thanks for the link but I'm still confused. I'm running hardware version 7. I mean I can never have more then 3GB of memory for my VM even if I'm running hardware version 10 in ESX5? It even contradicts itself:

"With hardware version 7 and later, VMware products reserve 1 GB for PCI devices. As a result, all the memory specified in the virtual machine configuration is available to the guest operating system. Memory settings now specify the amount of memory available, not the highest address available as system RAM, which is now 1 GB higher for virtual machines with more than 3 GB of memory."

kenw232, are you sure that your cpu supports 64bits.
and how many memory does your system has total.
If your system has total 4 GB ram, than yes it can never be more than 3 GB.

if your system has 8 GB ram, and your cpu supports 64bits, than from your 8 GB, 1 GB will be used for your PCI devices.
so if you create a guest OS with 8 GB RAM, you will only see 7 GB.

yes, it is 64 bit as shown below. Like I said its an ESX server. It has 12GB of memory, I'm trying to allocate 4GB to the guest.


So if I assign 5GB to the guest it should then see 4GB? Is this what your saying by chance?

You can't change the Guest OS version while the VM is running. I have never seen the Guest OS version change values when the VM is run. Could it be the VMware-tools that is doing that?

What is the output of the "uname -a" command in the guest OS?

uname -a:
Linux server 3.10.18 #13 SMP Sat Dec 14 15:12:13 EST 2013 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520

Even if vmware tools does change it, it still boots with dmesg showing it only sees 3GB before vmware tools is run. I'm going to try to assign 5GB to see what happens. Its a production machine so I cant do it now.

That did it. I can't believe it. I had to assign the guest VM 5GB to see 4GB.