ASR1000 Series Memory Allocation Between Linux and IOSd - Tech Zone https://techzone.cisco.com/t5/tkb/articleprintpage/tkb-id/cats_memory@t...

Tech Zone Tech Zone Knowledge Base Core Architecture Knowledge Base Memory Troubleshooting

ASR1000 Series Memory Allocation Between Linux and IOSd

(7,986 Views)

by davidch3 on 05-21-2013 08:13 PM - edited on 07-03-2013 03:51 PM by jasibarr

Activity: Monitor, Deploy, Troubleshooting

Content: Installation Guide
Problem: Memory Depletion
Product (Cisco): ASR1000, ASR

Table of Contents
Introduction
Memory Allocation
Memory Usage in SSO Mode for Single RP Chassis
Memory Usage with ASR1001

Introduction
This document describes the memory allocation between Linux and IOSd on the Cisco 1000 Series Aggregation Services
Router (ASR).

Contributed by David Chen, Cisco TAC Engineer.

Memory Allocation
Cisco IOS™ runs as a process, Cisco IOS daemon (IOSd), on top of a Linux kernel on the ASR1000 platform. Linux is the
memory manager and allocates a fixed portion of memory for IOSd to use. The amount of memory is split roughly half and half
between the Linux kernel and IOSd.

In order to verify how much physical memory is installed, check the output from the show version command. In this output,
there is 4GB (4194304K) of DRAM installed with 1.7GB (1732016K) allocated to IOSd.

cisco ASR1002 (2RU) processor with 1732016K/6147K bytes of memory.

4 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
32768K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
4194304K bytes of physical memory.

Check the Processor Pool with the show process memory command in order to verify the total processor IOSd memory. This
is the only pool of concern in IOSd:

------------------ show process memory ------------------

Processor Pool Total: 1773498940 Used: 1069637628 Free: 703861312

There is 1.77GB available for use, as expected. However, this amount is a little less than half because a sizeable portion is
used in order to store the large decompressed IOS-XE images.

Memory Usage in SSO Mode for Single RP Chassis

Single Route Processor–only chassis, such as the ASR1001, ASR1002, and ASR1004, can run Software Stateful Switchover
(SSO) virtually and provide software redundancy. There is no hardware Route Processor (RP) redundancy with these
platforms.

In this example, there is 4GB of DRAM installed with an RP1 processor.

1 of 3 18-Jul-18, 11:13 AM
ASR1000 Series Memory Allocation Between Linux and IOSd - Tech Zone https://techzone.cisco.com/t5/tkb/articleprintpage/tkb-id/cats_memory@t...

cisco ASR1004 (RP1) processor with 680124K/6147K bytes of memory.

Processor board ID FOX1537G88Y
5 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
32768K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
4194304K bytes of physical memory.

However, the router is configured for SSO.

redundancy
mode sso

The output from the show platform command confirms that the single RP (R0) is split into two software RPs (R0/0 and R0/1).

------------------ show platform ------------------

Chassis type: ASR1004
Slot Type State Insert time (ago)
--------- ------------------- --------------------- -----------------
0 ASR1000-SIP10 ok 18w0d
0/0 SPA-5X1GE-V2 ok 18w0d
R0 ASR1000-RP1 ok 18w0d
R0/0 ok, active 18w0d
R0/1 ok, standby 18w0d

When you check the Processor Pool, you can see that the memory is split in half again, with 1GB to each RP. After you
subtract the decompressed IOS-XE image, there is now only approximately 696MB of total memory left for one instance of
IOSd.

------------------ show process memory ------------------

Processor Pool Total: 696361580 Used: 676707244 Free: 19654336

In order to run a full Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) table stably, more than 696MB might be needed. The recommended
minimum in order to run SSO is 8GB total DRAM.

Note: The maximum DRAM supported for an RP1 is 4GB. For more details, reference the Cisco ASR 1000 Series
Route Processor Data Sheet.

Memory Usage with ASR1001

For platforms like the ASR1001, with both the RP and Embedded Services Processor (ESP) integrated, the total initial
Processor Memory starts off lower than expected.

As with the other examples, this output shows 4GB of DRAM installed.

cisco ASR1001 (1RU) processor with 1207128K/6147K bytes of memory.

4 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
32768K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
4194304K bytes of physical memory.

Notice that the router only has 1.23GB of Processor Pool memory available, whereas an ASR1002 has approximately 1.77GB.

------------------ show process memory ------------------

Processor Pool Total: 1235972656 Used: 983365712 Free: 252606944

The ESP is generally a separate module with its own physical memory. However, for the ASR1001, the RP and ESP are both

2 of 3 18-Jul-18, 11:13 AM
ASR1000 Series Memory Allocation Between Linux and IOSd - Tech Zone https://techzone.cisco.com/t5/tkb/articleprintpage/tkb-id/cats_memory@t...

integrated and must share the DRAM. For this reason, the router starts off with with less memory.

Note: The memory values listed in this document might differ slightly due to configuration variations.

Everyone's Tags: Memory tz:scim:633045677 tz:scim:633087323 tz:scim:633235913 tz:scim:633502539 View All (32)

3 of 3 18-Jul-18, 11:13 AM