Measuring Free memory

[Lowell Gilbert]

Mario Lobo <lobo at bsd.com.br> writes:

> I am trying to get the most precise reading I can of all free memory (8-
> STABLE).

First, you'll need a precise definition of what you mean by "free memory".

> I am using 
> /usr/bin/vmstat | grep -a 2 | awk '{print $5}'
>
> But I'm not sure if this reflects ALL free memory.
>
> Would anyone have a more precise place to read free memory from?

Add the "-H" flag to get that value more precise.  I suspect, however,
that precision isn't really the right term for what you're after.  

Have you seen:
 http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#TOP-FREEMEM
and
 http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/admin.html#FREE-MEMORY-AMOUNT
by any chance?

-- 
Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area
		http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/