19.2. Top-level Files within the proc
File System
Below is a list of some of the more useful virtual files in the top-level of the /proc/
directory.
This file is used primarily for diagnosing memory fragmentation issues. Using the buddy algorithm, each column represents the number of pages of a certain order (a certain size) that are available at any given time. For example, for zone direct memory access (DMA), there are 90 of 2(0*PAGE_SIZE) chunks of memory. Similarly, there are 6 of 2(1*PAGE_SIZE) chunks, and 2 of 2(2*PAGE_SIZE) chunks of memory available.
The DMA
row references the first 16 MB on a system, the HighMem
row references all memory greater than 4 GB on a system, and the Normal
row references all memory in between.
The following is an example of the output typical of /proc/buddyinfo
:
Node 0, zone DMA 90 6 2 1 1 ...
Node 0, zone Normal 1650 310 5 0 0 ...
Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 ...