Here I am explaining how to check memory usage in the user space, especially from the command line. There are two perspective to see memory usage – System level and per-process level.
System level memory usage check
- free
- top
- /proc/meminfo
- /proc/buddyinfo
- /proc/pagetypeinfo
- vmstat
- /var/log/sa/sa[r]*
- /proc/vmstat
- /proc/slabinfo
- slabtop
- ipcs
Per-process level memory usage check
- ps
- pmap
- /proc/<pid>/maps
- /proc/<pid>/smaps : especially Pss : https://lwn.net/Articles/230975/
System level memory usage check
free
top
/proc/meminfo
/proc/buddyinfo
/proc/pagetypeinfo
vmstat
/var/log/sa/
You can get historical system data which also include memory usage history. There are some nice tools that is working with this sar data.
- Red Hat Memory Analyser Lab : https://access.redhat.com/labs/rhma/
- kSar : https://github.com/vlsi/ksar
/proc/vmstat
/proc/slabinfo
slabtop
ipcs
Per-process level memory usage check
ps
pmap
/proc/<pid>/maps
/proc/<pid>/smaps
Sungju's Slow Life 
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