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Understanding server memory
For the purpose of monitoring memory usage on our server, we have the 
free
 
command at our disposal, which we can use to see how much memory is being 
consumed at any given time. Giving the 
free
 command with no options will result in 
the output being shown in terms of kilobytes:
Figure 8.5: Output of the free command
My favorite variation of this command is 
free -m
, which shows the amount of 
memory in use in terms of megabytes. You can also use 
free -g
 to show the output 
in terms of gigabytes, but the output won't be precise enough on most servers. In my 
opinion, adding the 
-m
 option makes the 
free
 command much more readable:
Figure 8.6: Output of the free -m command
Since everything is broken down into megabytes, it's much easier to read, at least for 
me.

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Chapter 8