[LEDE-DEV] x86 comfortable ram for docker image w/ webui

[Alberto Bursi]

On 12/26/2017 09:19 PM, dan wrote:
> I'm looking into  using LEDE for providing virtual routers to my
> customers (small wISP).  I've used a mikrotik solution in the past,
> but that isn't super friendly and hardware support in their more
> powerful offerings is missing.
>
> So, I'm looking at using LEDE+LuCI in a virtual configuration.
>
> What is the minimum *comfortable* ram for a home router with
> LEDE+LuCI?  This would be on x86, virtualized most likely in docker or
> LXC.  The virtualized router would have 1 interface to a bridge on the
> host, and one interface to a VLAN on another ethernet port.
>
>

I have a testing VM on x86-64 with Virtualbox, with luci installed and 
only default services running.
I gave it 64 MB of RAM (which is the "recommended" amount for devices).

this is the available memory before I start luci
root at LEDE:~# free
                      total       used           free shared    
buffers     cached
Mem:         55352      20872      34480         72       1900 5276
-/+ buffers/cache:      13696      41656
Swap:            0          0          0

this is the available memory while luci is running
root at LEDE:~# free
                      total       used          free shared    
buffers     cached
Mem:         55352      22384      32968        132       2020 6320
-/+ buffers/cache:      14044      41308
Swap:            0          0          0

I have used LEDE on real hardware with 32 MB of RAM and while it works 
fine , also luci works fine, they don't have much free memory for 
anything else, even opkg calls to install packages can fail.

On actual devices with 64MB it's all fine, I can do anything I want on 
my router with that.

Since you are running it as a VM you aren't bound to realistic RAM amounts,
you can probably save some space and choose something arbitrary like
45 MB of RAM and it should still be fine for a home router.

-Alberto