KubeCon NA, Atlanta, US, Nov 2025

Deep Dive: Handling Kubernetes Memory Pressure & Achieving Workload Stability With NodeSwap

slides here: [PUBLIC] Deep Dive_ Handling Kubernetes Memory Pressure & Achieving Workload Stability With NodeSwap.pptx.pdf

Linux Kernel Memory Buffer

// From a 1.32 GKE node -- 8GB ubuntu 
$ sysctl vm.min_free_kbytes
vm.min_free_kbytes = 67584 // ~68MB

Linux kernel will set this value based on RAM size and thp pagesizes - a good explanation of how it gets 68MB in x86 systems is here.

From kernel bits --

1. Initial kernel calculation (lowmem bytes) -- setting default linux/mm /page_alloc.c:calculate_min_free_kbytes here.
2. Huge-table adjustment here