Inconsistency between PVE VM memory vs actual

[rsaanon]

ENV: PVE 6.0-9

I have a pfsense VM that is configured for 8GB Memory. The PVE GUI/dashboard for the VM shows that 7.5GB is being used by the VM; however, if I login to the VM via terminal, I show that memory consumption is NO way near what PVE is reporting (i.e.: VM is actual only consuming around 250MB). Why/Where is this inconsistency coming from & how to resolve it?

Please see the attached screenshot.

Thanks!

 

[danielb]

Because caches and buffers are not accounted in the used memory from the guest POV, but is still used memory from the host POV (you can see ~7.5GB being used as buffers).

 

[rsaanon]

Thanks for your response, @danielb

Not sure I understand/agree, though. From a VM/memory standpoint, one would be interested in the physical memory being used by the VM and not cached/buffered memory that resides on the disk. From a memory management/provisioning perspective, it would only make sense if the PVE/dashboard displayed that actual memory that is being consumed so additional memory can be provisioned if needed. Also, looking at the screenshot I posted initially, the top command output shows the following:
Active Memory: 42M, Wired Memory: 167M, Buffered Memory: 22M, Free: 7612M

Thanks!

 

[danielb]

Sorry, my bad, I miss read your top screenshot. It's indeed ~7.5GB of free mem, not buffers (which only account 22M). Not sure where the diff comes from. Probably something to do with the way the FreeBSD kernel frees memory

 

[rsaanon]

Sorry, my bad, I miss read your top screenshot. It's indeed ~7.5GB of free mem, not buffers (which only account 22M). Not sure where the diff comes from. Probably something to do with the way the FreeBSD kernel frees memory

I'm thinking it's a bug.