*nix free memory and polling

Question

We are new converts to Solarwinds so are learning the hard way, in some cases, and struggling with others..

One such is the output of the *nix free command

My understanding of this is that the yellow highlighted section is the actual free memory on this box, meaning with this example that we have approx 27% free memory. However, Solarwinds insists on reporting that we are using in excess of 90% and appears to be based on the "mem" line. I have seen this so used the PollerCheckertool (note the use of tool at the end for anyone new to this - the article excludes this) and this for understanding what to do with the tool, but even when only using the pollers that it returns as highlighted in green we don't get any improvement in the reporting of the "true" free memory figure.

Anybody have a solution or some advice please?

If it makes a difference this is a Checkpoint console.

stuartd · Answer

Thank you - one or the other of those looks like it will do the job for us... not that we've played with creating a universal poller yet. Or at least I haven't.

Many thanks

antonis.athanasiou · Answer

In that case, have a look at this one Poller for "LinuxAteMyRam" now available! which let you control how the CPU and Memory pollers calculator work or create a Universal Device Poller  (Create a Universal Device Poller (UnDP) in the Orion Platform - SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. Help and Support  )

The only pre-req for both options would be that your Checkpoint device is actually able to report the free memory back by using a regular SNMP get request.

Have a play with :\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion\SnmpWalk.exe utility to see if the device is capable.

Hope that helps

stuartd · Answer

Hi and thanks for the response - both pages provide great information and even expand on my understanding. What neither page does  is provide an answer to our issue.

I need to understand how to get Solarwinds to see and report on the free (aka available) memory rather than 'used & available' memory. So from my screenshot that value would be: 846916 - and this is almost certainly to do with our understanding of Solarwinds rathe than our understanding of free.