Re: [HTCondor-users] request_memory

[Todd Tannenbaum <tannenba@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/2/2014 8:12 AM, Brian Bockelman wrote:
> Boo!  Hiss!  ImageSize is bad!

Agree!

Ideally, folks want to know how much physical RAM a given job is using. 
ImageSize, which is a sum of the virtual address space used by all 
processes in the job,  is not ideal because it often much larger than 
the amount of physical ram in use.  The only advantage of ImageSize is 
it exists on all platforms and in all versions of HTCondor.

For HTCondor v8.0+, consider using MemoryUsage instead.  MemoryUsage is 
the peak physical memory usage for the job in megabytes, or as best an 
estimate as HTCondor can do on a given operating system.  Perfect.  Be 
aware that MemoryUsage is not defined until the job actually runs.

There are many other "lower level" attributes that characterize the 
memory usage of an application, such as ResidentSetSize, 
ProportionalSetSizeKb, etc.  But unless you have something very specific 
in mind, MemoryUsage is what you want.

ps - For more wisdom/recipes related to memory usage, see

https://htcondor-wiki.cs.wisc.edu/index.cgi/wiki?p=HowToLimitMemoryUsage

Todd