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| FREE(1) User Commands FREE(1)
NAME
free - Display amount of free and used memory in the system
SYNOPSIS
free [options]
DESCRIPTION
free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the system, as well as the buffers and caches used by the kernel. The
information is gathered by parsing /proc/meminfo. The displayed columns are:
total Total installed memory (MemTotal and SwapTotal in /proc/meminfo)
used Used memory (calculated as total - free - buffers - cache)
free Unused memory (MemFree and SwapFree in /proc/meminfo)
shared Memory used (mostly) by tmpfs (Shmem in /proc/meminfo, available on kernels 2.6.32, displayed as zero if not available)
buffers
Memory used by kernel buffers (Buffers in /proc/meminfo)
cache Memory used by the page cache and slabs (Cached and SReclaimable in /proc/meminfo)
buff/cache
Sum of buffers and cache
available
Estimation of how much memory is available for starting new applications, without swapping. Unlike the data provided by the cache or free
fields, this field takes into account page cache and also that not all reclaimable memory slabs will be reclaimed due to items being in use
(MemAvailable in /proc/meminfo, available on kernels 3.14, emulated on kernels 2.6.27+, otherwise the same as free)
OPTIONS
-b, --bytes
Display the amount of memory in bytes.
-k, --kilo
Display the amount of memory in kilobytes. This is the default.
-m, --mega
Display the amount of memory in megabytes.
-g, --giga
Display the amount of memory in gigabytes.
--tera Display the amount of memory in terabytes.
--peta Display the amount of memory in petabytes.
-h, --human
Show all output fields automatically scaled to shortest three digit unit and display the units of print out. Following units are used.
B = bytes
K = kilos
M = megas
G = gigas
T = teras
P = petas
If unit is missing, and you have exabyte of RAM or swap, the number is in terabytes and columns might not be aligned with header.
-w, --wide
Switch to the wide mode. The wide mode produces lines longer than 80 characters. In this mode buffers and cache are reported in two separate
columns.
-c, --count count
Display the result count times. Requires the -s option.
-l, --lohi
Show detailed low and high memory statistics.
-s, --seconds seconds
Continuously display the result delay seconds apart. You may actually specify any floating point number for delay, usleep(3) is used for
microsecond resolution delay times.
--si Use power of 1000 not 1024.
-t, --total
Display a line showing the column totals.
--help Print help.
-V, --version
Display version information.
FILES
/proc/meminfo
memory information
SEE ALSO
ps(1), slabtop(1), top(1), vmstat(8).
AUTHORS
Written by Brian Edmonds.
REPORTING BUGS
Please send bug reports to ⟨procps@freelists.org⟩
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