available memory when attached to docker container is less than container limit

Question

when i start a container like this:

docker run -d --memory=6g $image ,

docker stats $container_id shows that it has a memory limit of 6gb, which is expected.

however, when i connect into that container ( docker exec -it $container_id /bin/bash ), my shell is limited to only 1gb. (which is confirmed by calling free -m as well as some testing in allocating objects in python [it fails at around 1gb]).

my question is: how can i get access to all of the memory available in the container?

thank you.

Answer 1

ok, in this case, even though docker stats was showing that my container had 6gbs, the virtual machine on which docker was running was limited to 1gb. so i changed my virtual machine limitations and solved the problem.