RAM Usage

[canadiancow]

I've had cPanel/WHM running happily on a box with 2GB RAM for a long time now. It never used any swap.

I just setup cPanel/WHM on a virtual machine with 3GB RAM allocated, and transferred all the accounts over. It's using all 3GB, but again, no swap.

I'm trying to decide how much RAM should be allocated, but whatever I give it, it seems to use.

What's using all the RAM, and how can I determine how much RAM it needs?

[serversphere]

Linux likes to use all the available memory it can get it's hands on, so if you throw 3GB at it you will see it take 3GB. You can use the free and top commands to guage if you are allocating more than necessary. The general rule is enough is never enough.

[serversignature]

try to run Dstat to find out your stats
Dstat is a versatile replacement for vmstat, iostat, netstat, nfsstat and ifstat.
http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/dstat/

[PlatinumServerM]

As mentioned above, linux will consume then redistribute the memory. So even on an empty server, the memory can appear high. You should pay the most attention to the load, swap, and process count. If they are all fine, then you can safely ignore the high memory indication.