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Created June 9, 2021 07:07
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Fixing khugepaged CPU usage VMware Workstation
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vmware-workstation-khugepaged-fix.md

If you run VMware Workstation 11 or above you may encounter high CPU usage from process khugepaged on Ubuntu 15.04+

The fix is to disable transparent hugepages. It seems Ubuntu has it enabled by default.

You can check the current status on your system by running:

cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled

cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag

Fedora outputs: always [madvise] never but Ubuntu outputs: [always] madvise never

Fedora seems to not be effected but I havn't tested it myself.

So I suggest not using madvise and just disable it totally.

To disable it run the following commands as root:

echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled

echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag

That will only disable it for the current session.

To have it persistant across reboots I suggest adding this to your rc.local:

# Fix for VMware Workstation 11+ khugepaged.
echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag

Ensure this goes above the line:

exit 0

More info and references:

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