Section 6.15. Kernel Memory with kstat

6.15. Kernel Memory with kstat

You can determine the amount of kernel memory by using the Solaris kstat command and multiplying the pp_kernel by the system's base page size. The computed output is in bytes; in this example, the kernel is using approximately 250 Mbytes of memory.

$ kstat unix::system_pages:pp_kernel module: unix                            instance: 0 name:   system_pages                    class:    pages         pp_kernel                       64102 $ pagesize 4096 $ bc 64102*4096 262561792 

A general rule is that you would expect the kernel to use approximately 15% of the system's total physical memory. We've seen this to be true in more than 90% of observed situations. Exceptions to the rule are cases, such as an in-kernel Web server cache, in which the majority of the workload is kernel based. Investigate further if you see large kernel memory sizes.