"Lack of free swap space" on Windows Server

I have just resolved my item with the same error. It is related to the windows page file and in my case it was configured to be automatically managed by windows.

In my situation Windows didn't think it wanted a higher swap space and wasn't taking out more space but it was at 0 remaining so zabbix was reporting the error. I have chosen to move to a custom page file size - just remember to hit set prior to saving as it won't always retain after a reboot.

System -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Performance Settings -> Advanced Tab and changed to use a manual page file rather than the system allocated page file

That is one solution for the problem. Unfortunately for us, we have many Windows servers and leave their pagefile (swap space) to be managed by Windows.

When Windows manages the pagefile, it leaves the pagefile size alone even sometimes filled with 0 bytes free until some program requests more memory and then if it has space on the pagefile drive, it will grow the size of the pagefile providing more free pagefile space.

This confuses the "simple" Zabbix alarm. It sees, for example, a 1.7GB page file with 0 bytes free and throws an alarm. It didn't see that Windows was managing the pagefile and the drive had plenty of disk space available for pagefile growth.

It'd be great if Zabbix could (psuedo code follows): IF "Windows is managing the pagefile" THEN IF pagefile free space % is lower than threshold AND drive containing pagefile has less free space than 2nd threshold THEN throw trigger (send alarm) ELSE #assumes fixed pagefile size on a drive IF pagefile free space % is lower than threshold THEN throw trigger (send alarm) FI

This trigger complexity is beyond my Zabbix skill rating. If anyone has suggestions on how to implement this it would greatly help. (We chase 4 to 5 production level swap space alarms each day. Correction, ignore. Which scares us and should scare Zabbix developers. Crying wolf is not a good thing.)

Bill

If you don't think it will be an issue, you can just disable the warning. Go to: Templates > Template OS Linux > Triggers and disable: Lack of free swap space on {HOST.NAME}

You could also make a copy of the template if you want to monitor swap space on other machines.