Invalid memory stats from vmstat and sysctl vm.vmtotal?

[Steven Hartland]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jason Hellenthal" <jhell at DataIX.net>

> This goes along with the thoughts I had about 4 months ago tending to some
> zfs statistics as well top showing greater than 100% actual CPU usage. This
> is a big pet peave of mine. Its like saying you ate 134% of a bannanna when
> in all reallity it is impossible. You can never have more than 100% usage of
> anything and when seen is a clear notice that some math is considerably
> incorrect leading to other such miscalculations to be performed. Things like
> the above already have checks in place that ensure no boundries are being
> crossed/overflowed or underrun but it surely makes processing results building
> future products a bitch. One instance is the calculation of threads for example
> firefox can be seen using upto or more 338% of the CPU. Thats impossible its
> like saying anyones CPU grew by 400%.

I could understand a bit of overflow as stats are snapshots which may not
be instuntanious, but 31GB instead of under 8GB is hardly a rounding issue /
overflow.

With respect to top showing greater than 100% by how much are you talking?
Do your realise that each core = 100%? So if you have a quad core your system
total will be 400% not 100%?

    Regards
    Steve

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