Windows Servers report incorrect installed memory

[stebbo]

Hi All,

I've just noticed that my Windows servers are reporting the 'incorrect' amount of memory installed. They seem to report double the physical RAM, which I assume means that they're reporting the physical plus the virtual ram as being availabe RAM. I am using nsclient++ (0.4.1.90 on a few of the machines) and using the check_nt command with MEMUSE argument.

Is this the expected behaviour? Is it possible to get either nsclient or the check_nt command to report just physical ram?

Cheers,
Chris.

[lmiltchev]

It's a known issue. I would recommend using CheckMem with NRPE:

http://www.nsclient.org/nscp/wiki/CheckSystem/checkMem

[WillemDH]

Doesn't MEMUSE uses the committed bytes in use and committed bytes limit as counter?

Example Server Nagios output:
Memory usage: total:10077.82 Mb - used: 6577.12 Mb (65%) - free: 3500.70 Mb (35%)

When going to performance monitor on this particular server, in this example when you divide the average value 6817336361 / 1024 / 1024 => 6501 whats pretty close to the 6577.12 MB Nagios returns. As Nagios is configured to onyl run the check every 5 minutes, I was thinking committed bytes was the value used. Also the % committed bytes in use is displayed correctly..

Or am I wrong?

Using checkmem gives obviously much more options... http://www.nsclient.org/nscp/wiki/CheckSystem/checkMem .. I still have to look into it though

Can someone please confimr or deny MEMUSE makes use of the committed bytes / commit limit performance counter?

Monitoring memory for Windows can be a pain as different kind of servers use their memory in a different way. SQL and Sharepoint server for example almost always use all their available RAM, what can make monitoring RAM only good for statistics.
SCOM for example will by default only alert for % committed bytes in use, not for pagefile or RAM usage.

[yancy]

WillemDH,

NSClient can monitor any performance counter (not certain which one checkmem uses though)

http://www.nsclient.org/nscp/wiki/Check ... eckCounter

Hope that helps,

-Yancy