﻿---
title: Increase virtual memory
description: Elasticsearch uses a mmapfs directory by default to store its indices. The default operating system limits on mmap counts could be too low, which may...
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/5253/deploy-manage/deploy/self-managed/vm-max-map-count
products:
  - Elasticsearch
applies_to:
  - Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available
---

# Increase virtual memory
Elasticsearch uses a [`mmapfs`](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/elasticsearch/tree/main/reference/elasticsearch/index-settings/store#mmapfs) directory by default to store its indices. The default operating system limits on mmap counts could be too low, which may result in out of memory exceptions.
<admonition title="Verify vm.max_map_count configuration">
  If the operating system's default `vm.max_map_count` value is `1048576` or higher, no configuration change is necessary. If the default value is lower than `1048576`, configure the `vm.max_map_count` parameter to `1048576`.
</admonition>

On Linux, you can increase the limits by running the following command as `root`:
```sh
sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=1048576
```

To set this value permanently, update the `vm.max_map_count` setting in `/etc/sysctl.conf`. To verify after rebooting, run `sysctl vm.max_map_count`.
The RPM and Debian packages will configure this setting automatically. No further configuration is required.
You can find out the current mmap count of a running Elasticsearch process using the following command, where `$PID` is the process ID of the running Elasticsearch process:
```sh
wc -l /proc/$PID/maps
```