<p>How do I interpret the memory usage returned by "kubectl top node". E.g. if it returns:</p>

<pre>
    NAME                   CPU(cores)   CPU%      MEMORY(bytes)   MEMORY%
    ip-XXX.ec2.internal    222m         11%       3237Mi          41%
    ip-YYY.ec2.internal    91m          9%        2217Mi          60%
</pre>

<p>By comparison, if I look in the Kubernetes dashboard for the same node, I get:
Memory Requests: 410M / 7.799 Gi</p>

<p><hr>
<strong>kubernetes dashboard</strong></p>

<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/uz0ZS.png" alt="[1]"></p>

<hr>

<p>How do I reconcile the difference?</p>

<p><code>kubectl top node</code> is reflecting the actual usage to the VM(nodes), and k8s dashboard is showing the percentage of limit/request you configured.</p>

<p>E.g. Your EC2 instance has 8G memory and you actually use 3237MB so it's 41%. In k8s, you only request 410MB(5.13%), and have a limit of 470MB memory. This doesn't mean you only consume 5.13% memory, but the amount configured. </p>

<pre><code>  Namespace         Name                                CPU Requests    CPU Limits  Memory Requests Memory Limits
  ---------         ----                                ------------    ----------  --------------- -------------
  default           kube-lego                           20m (2%)    0 (0%)      0 (0%)      0 (0%)
  default           mongo-0                             100m (10%)  0 (0%)      0 (0%)      0 (0%)
  default           web                                 100m (10%)  0 (0%)      0 (0%)      0 (0%)
  kube-system       event-exporter-                     0 (0%)      0 (0%)      0 (0%)      0 (0%)
  kube-system       fluentd-gcp-v2.0-z6xh9              100m (10%)  0 (0%)      200Mi (11%) 300Mi (17%)
  kube-system       heapster-v1.4.0-3405140848-k6cm9    138m (13%)  138m (13%)  301456Ki (17%)  301456Ki (17%)
  kube-system       kube-dns-3809445927-hn5xk           260m (26%)  0 (0%)      110Mi (6%)  170Mi (9%)
  kube-system       kube-dns-autoscaler-38801           20m (2%)    0 (0%)      10Mi (0%)   0 (0%)
  kube-system       kube-proxy-gke-staging-default-     100m (10%)  0 (0%)      0 (0%)      0 (0%)
  kube-system       kubernetes-dashboard-1962351        100m (10%)  100m (10%)  100Mi (5%)  300Mi (17%)
  kube-system       l7-default-backend-295440977        10m (1%)    10m (1%)    20Mi (1%)   20Mi (1%)
</code></pre>

<p>Here you see many pods with 0 request/limit means <strong>unlimited</strong>, which didn't count in k8s dashboard but <strong>definitely</strong> consume memory.</p>

<p>Sum up the memory request/limit you'll find they match k8s dashboard.
<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pNjNS.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pNjNS.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
