How do I tell if a Linux system has hugemem?

Question

i386 Linux kernels can be configured for a 2, 3 or 4 GiB limit on virtual address space per process, AFAIK. Is there something I can query in /proc or elsewhere to tell how the currently-running kernel was configured?

Update: Thanks for the answers on how to query for 4G. Any way I can query for 2G vs 3G?

Answer 1

On some kernels (depends on configuration), the config is exported in /proc, try this:

$ zcat /proc/config.gz | grep -i "CONFIG_HIGHMEM"

You could 'grep' for anything else you'd like to know.

Answer 2

On Ubuntu 9.04:

$ cat /etc/lsb-release 
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jaunty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.04"
$ uname -r
2.6.28-11-generic
$ grep -i "CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G" /boot/config-`uname -r`
CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y

Answer 3

Most Fedora distros include the config used to create the kernel vmimage, try something like this

$ cat /etc/redhat-release 
Fedora release 10 (Cambridge)
$ grep -i "CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G" /boot/config-`uname -r`
CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y

This may also be true for Ubuntu and Debian distributions.

Answer 4

I found a useful summary of kernel mailing list discussion on this at http://www.spack.org/wiki/LinuxRamLimits