ramctl

CLI tool for RAM management on macOS (Apple Silicon)

ramctl is a lightweight command-line interface for monitoring and managing RAM on macOS systems with Apple Silicon. It provides real-time memory statistics, process monitoring, and memory cleanup utilities.

---

Features

• Memory Status: Display current RAM usage, swap, and memory pressure
• Process Monitoring: List top processes by memory consumption
• Real-time Monitor: Continuous monitoring with customizable refresh intervals
• Memory Cleanup: Purge disk cache to reclaim memory (requires sudo)
• Process Management: Terminate processes by PID to free memory
• Color-coded Output: Visual indicators for memory pressure levels

---

Installation

From Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Samsuesca/ram_manager_cli.git
cd ram_manager_cli

# Build release binary
cargo build --release

# Install to PATH (optional)
cargo install --path .

Requirements

• macOS with Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3)
• Rust 1.70 or higher

---

Usage

Show Memory Status

ramctl status

Displays:

• Total, used, available, and free memory
• Swap usage
• Memory pressure (normal/warning/critical)

List Top Processes

# Show top 15 processes (default)
ramctl top

# Show custom number of processes
ramctl top --count 20

Real-time Monitoring

# Monitor every 2 seconds (default)
ramctl monitor

# Custom interval and process count
ramctl monitor --interval 5 --count 15

Press Ctrl+C to stop monitoring.

Clean Memory

# Purge disk cache (requires sudo)
sudo ramctl clean

⚠️ This command requires administrator privileges.

Kill Process

# Terminate process by PID
ramctl kill <PID>

---

Command Reference

Command	Description	Options
status	Show current memory status	None
top	List top processes by RAM usage	-c, --count <N>
monitor	Real-time memory monitoring	-i, --interval <seconds> -c, --count <N>
clean	Purge disk cache (sudo required)	None
kill	Terminate process by PID	<PID>

---

Example Output

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    MEMORY STATUS                        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Total:       16.00 GB                                   │
│ Used:        12.34 GB (77.1%)                          │
│ Available:   3.66 GB                                    │
│ Free:        1.45 GB                                    │
│ Swap Used:   512.00 MB                                  │
│ Pressure:    ⚠️  Warning                                │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─────┬─────────────────────┬─────────┬──────────┐
│ PID │ Name                │ Memory  │ CPU (%)  │
├─────┼─────────────────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ 234 │ Google Chrome       │ 2.1 GB  │ 45.2     │
│ 567 │ Visual Studio Code  │ 1.8 GB  │ 12.3     │
│ 890 │ Docker Desktop      │ 1.2 GB  │ 8.5      │
└─────┴─────────────────────┴─────────┴──────────┘

---

Technical Stack

• Language: Rust 2021 edition
• Dependencies:
  • clap - Command-line argument parsing
  • sysinfo - System metrics collection
  • colored - Terminal color output
  • tabled - ASCII table formatting
  • bytesize - Human-readable byte sizes
  • ctrlc - Signal handling

---

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs       # CLI entry point and command routing
├── memory.rs     # Memory snapshot and pressure monitoring
├── process.rs    # Process enumeration and filtering
├── cleaner.rs    # Memory purge and process termination
└── display.rs    # Formatted output rendering

---

Platform Support

Platform	Support
macOS (Apple Silicon)	✅ Full support
macOS (Intel)	⚠️ Untested
Linux	❌ Not supported
Windows	❌ Not supported

---

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

---

Author

Angel Samuel Suesca Ríos suescapsam@gmail.com

---

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'feat: add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

---

Roadmap

• Support for Intel-based Macs
• Linux compatibility
• Memory leak detection
• Historical memory usage graphs
• Configuration file support
• Notification system for high memory usage

---

Acknowledgments

Built with Rust for the macOS ecosystem.