Memory Baloon in action.

[mainprog]

Guys

Are there any way to see memory ballooning in action?
I have multiple guests which are not using memory fully and for sure host can steel certain amount of memory from them instead of using swap.

Memory Balloon is not much documented in Wiki.
Requirements are not clear. For linux it is mentioned that nothing is required.
But then how to see I have everything required on host and guest.
And see ballooning in actions at all.

Thank you very much.

 

[mir]

1) Go to the 'Monitor' tab for the VM
2) Where the cursor blinks type: info balloon

A working balloon driver will display:

A non working balloon driver will display:

 

[longhair]

How would I fix a non working balloon drive with a Windows 7 VM that has the VirtIO Balloon Driver installed?

 

[1nerdyguy]

How would I fix a non working balloon drive with a Windows 7 VM that has the VirtIO Balloon Driver installed?

Did you also install the balloon service? That's needed for Windows to manage it.

 

[longhair]

I didn't know I had to install anything for it to work.

 

[1nerdyguy]

I didn't know I had to install anything for it to work.

Yep, you need the service to manage the ballooning in Windows, linux has it already. Instructions on the wiki:

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Dynamic_Memory_Management#Enable_Auto-Ballooning_on_Windows_2008r2

Please note, I've found it to be a bit CPU hungry at times, so keep an eye.

 

[davlaw]

Another note, when you install the service, don't install from the cd. Copy from the cd to your vm, then install. When you install the service it will link/install from the directory its located in. So if you install from the cd, remove the cd, then the service will not start. There may be a better approach, but if you us the BLNSRV.exe -i it will do this.