OCI: How to Deallocate Hugepages

Applies to:

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - Version N/A and later

Linux x86-64

Goal:

This document outlines the steps required to deallocate Hugepages if they are not being used or are not required.

Solution:

A review of /proc/meminfo indicates that "HugePages" is allocated but not in use. HugePages_Free is the same as HugePages_Total which indicates that Hugepages are NOT in use.

Check the current allocation of HugePages

$ sudo  egrep -I "^HugePage" /proc/meminfo
HugePages_Total: 410200
HugePages_Free: 410200
HugePages_Rsvd: 0
HugePages_Surp: 0
Hugepagesize: 2048 kB

If Applications are being starved of Memory, then it is better to deallocate HugePages.