VM does not assign all available memory to Server 1.5Gig missing

Question

We have a number of different servers all with 5gig memory. However I can only assign 3046m to the VM
I am running on Oracle VMs with Oracle Enterprise Linux 64bit on these machines. However there is a large discrepency with the Memory on the VM and the actual memory in the machines, here is some information I have:
On the server itself if I do free -m gives me:
Total: 563 used: 205 free: 357
xm info|grep mem gives:
total_memory : 5046
free_memory : 1343
dmesg |grep mem gives
vmalloc area: e4800000-feffe000, maxmem 377fe000
Memory: 495616k/584704k available (2051k kernel code, 80632k reserved, 818k data, 176k init, 0k highmem)
My understanding of the above is that the Machine is allocated 0.5gig and the Current VM is assigned 3gig leaving almost 1.5gig unassigned and free. However, if I log into the VM Manager and try and assign the extra free memory to the VM, I get an error saying the maximum I can assgin is 3046.
In VM Manager I check the sever tab for the machine the VM is assgined to I can see:
Memory Size(MB): 3046.
xm list gives the following information, which I think sort of confirms my assumptions:
Name ID Mem VCPUs State Time(s)
70_ebstestapps 1 3046 2 -b---- 303.6
Domain-0 0 563 4 r----- 83.4
I am guessing this is my problem. Although the memory is available on the machine, when creating the server with VM Manager it is only picking up 3046!! I am unable to edit this value and have tried rebooting the server but the same value appears.
How can I fix this problem? any help in this would be greatly appreciated.
Zeki
Edited by: user4862131 on 21-Jan-2010 02:48

Answer 1

-Hi,
By reading the various e-mails it appeared as if people were complaining about the "server itself" seeing ~512Mb and it was on that basis that I send out my reply.
We have a 8 Quad-Core CPU system with 128Gb memory connected via Fibre Channel to a series of storage arrays. The storage array control software is installed on the base (dom0) VM so the device can be accessed via the fibre channel controller, and the storage can be configured and manged without any of the other virtual machines being create and/or running, as that is the storage were the VMs will ultimately be stored. The storage can be controlled over the network but that would require yet another system and we are trying to minimize the amount of hardware needed to manage the server. With only 512Mb of memory available to the dom0 VM, the software installation was taking forever because all of the 512Mb of physical memory available was used, and the system was swapping. So far everything is "working" for us so there must be enough of the Linux OS there to run the storage array control software.
My reply has no bearing for people addressing difficulties assigning some or all of available physical memory to virtual machines they create. Sorry for any confusion, but I'm new to OVM as well...