Installation guide

C H A P T E R 1 2 VMware ESX Server Resource Management
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You must log in as root in order to change resource management settings using
either the management interface or procfs.
Managing Memory Resources from the Service Console
You can also manage memory resources by editing the following settings in the
virtual machine’s configuration file. To edit the configuration file, use the
configuration file editor in the management interface. See Editing a Virtual Machine’s
Configuration File Directly on page 144 for details.
memsize = <size>
This configuration file option specifies the maximum virtual machine size to be
<size>MB.
sched.mem.minsize = <size>
This configuration file option specifies the guaranteed minimum virtual machine size
to be <size>MB. The maximum valid value for <size> is 100 percent of the
specified maximum virtual machine size. The minimum valid value for <size>
depends on the amount of available swap space. The default minimum size is 50
percent of the specified maximum virtual machine size.
sched.mem.shares = <n>
This configuration file option specifies the initial memory share allocation for a virtual
machine to be <n> shares. The valid range of numerical values for <n> is 0 to
100000. You may also use the special values low, normal and high. These values are
automatically converted into numbers, through the configuration options
MemSharesPerMBLow, MemSharesPerMBNormal and
MemSharesPerMBHigh, described in the next section. If the number of shares for
a virtual machine is not specified, the assigned allocation is normal, with a default
value equal to 10 times the virtual machine’s maximum memory, in MB.
For example, if you created a virtual machine with a maximum memory of 256MB, and
with its shares settings as normal, then this virtual machine has 10 times 256, or 2560
shares. Similarly, a virtual machine with a maximum memory of 1GB with a normal
share setting, has 10240 shares.
sched.mem.maxmemctl = <size>
This configuration file option specifies the maximum amount of memory that may be
reclaimed from the virtual machine using vmmemctl to be <size>MB. If additional
memory needs to be reclaimed, the system swaps instead of using vmmemctl. The
default maximum size is half of the specified maximum virtual machine size.
sched.mem.affinity = <NUMA_node>
This configuration file option specifies that, if possible, all of the virtual machine’s