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Swap values for virtual machines are not displayed in the esxtop "VM only" memory view on ESXi 5.1 (2043413)

Symptoms

  • vSphere Client or vSphere Web Client correctly indicate host and individual VM hypervisor swapping
  • esxtop memory view (m) with VM only (shift-v) shows overall host hypervisor swapping but does not attribute it to a virtual machine:
VM only memory view (shift-v):

(...)
SWAP  /MB:   459    curr,   453 rclmtgt:                 0.00 r/s,   0.00 w/s
ZIP   /MB:    54  zipped,    34   saved
MEMCTL/MB:  1023    curr,  1023  target,  1629 max
View VM only
      ID      GID NAME               MEMSZ    GRANT    SZTGT (...) SWCUR    SWTGT (...)
   32603    32603 WindowsServer20  2048.00   511.11   552.16 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
   83463    83463 SLES11SP2_mem_p  1024.00   604.00   699.27 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)


  • esxtop memory default view (m) attributes the swap values (SWCUR and SWTGT) to a vm-vmm world with a slightly higher GID than the VM world:
Default memory view:

(...)
SWAP  /MB:   459    curr,   454 rclmtgt:                 0.00 r/s,   0.00 w/s
ZIP   /MB:    54  zipped,    34   saved
MEMCTL/MB:  1023    curr,  1023  target,  1629 max

      ID      GID NAME               MEMSZ    GRANT    SZTGT (...)  SWCUR    SWTGT (...)
   32603    32603 WindowsServer20  2048.00   511.11   547.75 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
   32605    32605 vm-vmx.22799     2048.00   511.11   547.75 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
   32606    32606 vm-vmm.22799     2048.00   511.11   547.75 (...) 459.73   454.21 (...)
   83463    83463 SLES11SP2_mem_p  1024.00   604.00   699.11 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
   83465    83465 vm-vmx.52303     1024.00   604.00   699.11 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
   83466    83466 vm-vmm.52303     1024.00   604.00   699.11 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
    1828     1828 hostd.5053         57.48    42.82    47.11 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
    2402     2402 vpxa.5353          23.52    15.65    17.21 (...) 0.00     0.00 (...)
(...)

Cause

This is a display error in esxtop. The vm-vmm group's swap values should be rolled up into the VM group's swap values.

Resolution

This is a known issue.
 
Other methods of checking per VM swap via the API, CLI or GUI are still available and are not affected by this display issue.
 
To check per VM swapping on the ESXi console, you can use memstats. To map the VMX Cartel ID to the virtual machine's display name or .vmx path, you can use esxcli vm process list.

~ # memstats -r vm-stats -s name:b:memSize:max:swapTgt:swapped -u mb -v

 VIRTUAL MACHINE STATS
 ---------------------
   Start Group ID   : 0
   No. of levels    : 12
   Unit             : MB
   Selected columns : name:b:memSize:max:swapTgt:swapped

-------------------------------------------------------------
           name b    memSize        max    swapTgt    swapped
-------------------------------------------------------------
       vm.22799 y       2048        512        451        457
       vm.52303 y       1024         -1          0          0
-------------------------------------------------------------
          Total         3072                   451        457
-------------------------------------------------------------
Description of report header labels:
                name: Virtual machine name
                   b: Is balloon driver active?
             memSize: Guest physical memory size
                 max: Configured host physical memory limit for guest
             swapTgt: Host swap target
             swapped: Amount swapped by host


~ # esxcli vm process list | grep -A3 22799
   VMX Cartel ID: 22799
   UUID: 42 30 b6 27 ac d0 c0 63-f2 02 c9 85 73 5c 7d ad
   Display Name: WindowsServer2012GA
   Config File: /vmfs/volumes/50754a72-c3572cc0-2f5e-002522e84d6a/WindowsServer2012GA/WindowsServer2012GA.vmx

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