Linux Find Out Virtual Memory PAGESIZE

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Q. How do I check the size of PAGESIZE under Linux?

A. Most modern operating systems have their main memory divided into pages. It allows better utilization of memory. A page is a fixed length block of main memory, that is contiguous in both physical memory addressing and virtual memory addressing. Kernel swap and allocates memory using pages

To display size of a page in bytes, enter:
$ getconf PAGESIZE
OR
$ getconf PAGE_SIZE
Output:

4096

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

18 comment

  1. Can’t tell you how long I spent searching for this information. I knew it was simple and obvious, but I couldn’t remember it, so I could look it up! So many sites skip the command to get your page size. Points to you for having the info up and easy to parse.

    1. Guess you have to change the kernel source.

      In /usr/src/linux/include/asm-generic/page.h you can find the following lines:

      /* PAGE_SHIFT determines the page size */
      #define PAGE_SHIFT 12

  5. getconf is nicer for sure, I found the answer on RHEL 5 this way:

    man getpagesize

    pointed me in this direction:
    > cat test.c
    #include
    #include

    int main(void)
    {
    int sz;
    sz=getpagesize();
    printf(“Page size: %d\n”,sz);
    return 0;
    }

    > gcc -o test test.c
    > ./test
    Page size: 4096

    2. I think it’s the base-2 logarithm of the page size. In other words, 2^PAGE_SHIFT is the page size. 2^12=4096, the usual page size in bytes

  7. on running the calculation in gaussian linux programm i got error again and again….
    Probably out of disk space. Write error in NtrExt
    i search its meaning on net and found
    Solution: /scratch space is most likely full. Delete old files in temporary folder…
    please tell me how can do this…
    plz

  9. how can I print the virtual pages allocated to the currently running processes on my system and also the page faults associated with them?

  10. Hi,

    Most modern operating systems have their main memory divided into pages.

    Please correct if i am wong ,
    I think the main memory is divided into frames and the virtual memory is divided into pages.

  11. How do i implement a page size change in linux and what effect does it have if i either increase or decrease the page size?

  12. “Kernel swap and allocates memory using pages” should be: “kernel and swap allocate memory using pages.”

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