Reducing CSR-1000V Memory Usage

theodoxa

I finally got my VMware ESXi 5.5 server up and running last night after a lot of trouble getting it to recognize my NICs and SATA Controller. I got lucky as there was somebody who had used the same hardware and had the VIBs [and instructions on how to inject them into the ISO] on his site, because he had run into the same issue.

I used the OVA to deploy CSR-1000V to the server and chose the smallest option (1 vCPU + 2.5 GB RAM). When I spin up 5 x CSR-1000V it shows 14 GB of Host memory being "consumed". It appears to be consuming 100% of the memory assigned to the VM even when it is idle. I tried to find out how to enable Transparent Paging which a coworker had said a while back dramatically reduces the memory usage, but could not find the "Mem.ShareForceSalting" option which is supposed to enable/disable TPS.

Is there any way to reduce the memory usage? Could I just reduce the assigned RAM or will that cause problems? Even with 32 GB of RAM, at this rate, I would only be able to run 10 routers at a time.

CSR-1000V -- csr1000v-universalk9.03.14.00.S.155-1.S-std.ova
VMware ESXI -- VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.5.0.update02-2068190.x86_64.iso

OfWolfAndMan

2.5 is the minimum for the VMs unfortunately. 3 GB is usually less buggy, but you can get by with 2.5. I am running a 16 GB ESXi server at the moment, and I think I cap out at around 6. Probably will venture out to add an additional 16 as well a little later.

bermovick

The setting you're looking for is (as far as I know), Configuration / Advanced Settings / Mem / Mem.AllocGuestLargePage = 0

bermovick

For what it's worth, I just upgraded to 9.03.13.01.S.154-3.S1-ext and it uses a LOT more cpu and memory than my previous image of 9.03.12.00.S.154-2.S-std. It also seems a lot more unstable so I'm going to investigate downgrading or determining the best version to use.