xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/vmstat/vmstat.8 (revision 40a8ac8f62b535d30349faf28cf47106b7041b83)
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28.\"	@(#)vmstat.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd August 8, 2014
32.Dt VMSTAT 8
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm vmstat
36.Nd report virtual memory statistics
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.Nm
39.\" .Op Fl fimst
40.Op Fl afHhimPsz
41.Op Fl M Ar core Op Fl N Ar system
42.Op Fl c Ar count
43.Op Fl n Ar devs
44.Oo
45.Fl p
46.Sm off
47.Ar type , if , pass
48.Sm on
49.Oc
50.Op Fl w Ar wait
51.Op Ar disks ...
52.Op wait Op count
53.Sh DESCRIPTION
54The
55.Nm
56utility reports certain kernel statistics kept about process, virtual memory,
57disk, trap and cpu activity.
58.Pp
59If the
60.Fl M
61option is not specified, information is obtained from
62the currently running kernel via the
63.Xr sysctl 3
64interface.
65Otherwise, information is read from the specified core file,
66using the name list from the specified kernel image (or from
67the default image).
68.Pp
69The options are as follows:
70.Bl -tag -width indent
71.It Fl a
72When used with
73.Fl i ,
74include statistics about interrupts that have never been generated.
75.It Fl c
76Repeat the display
77.Ar count
78times.
79The first display is for the time since a reboot and each subsequent
80report is for the time period since the last display.
81If no repeat
82.Ar count
83is specified, and
84.Fl w
85is specified, the default is infinity, otherwise the default is one.
86.It Fl f
87Report on the number
88.Xr fork 2 ,
89.Xr vfork 2
90and
91.Xr rfork 2
92system calls since system startup, and the number of pages of virtual memory
93involved in each.
94.It Fl h
95Changes memory columns into more easily human readable form.
96The default if
97standard output is a terminal device.
98.It Fl H
99Changes memory columns into straight numbers.
100The default if standard output
101is not a terminal device (such as a script).
102.It Fl i
103Report on the number of interrupts taken by each device since system
104startup.
105.It Fl M
106Extract values associated with the name list from the specified
107.Ar core .
108.It Fl N
109If
110.Fl M
111is also specified,
112extract the name list from the specified
113.Ar system
114instead of the default,
115which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
116.It Fl m
117Report on the usage of kernel dynamic memory allocated using
118.Xr malloc 9
119by type.
120.It Fl n
121Change the maximum number of disks to display from the default of 2.
122.It Fl P
123Report per-cpu system/user/idle cpu statistics.
124.It Fl p
125Specify which types of devices to display.
126There are three different
127categories of devices:
128.Pp
129.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
130.It device type:
131.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
132.It da
133Direct Access devices
134.It sa
135Sequential Access devices
136.It printer
137Printers
138.It proc
139Processor devices
140.It worm
141Write Once Read Multiple devices
142.It cd
143CD devices
144.It scanner
145Scanner devices
146.It optical
147Optical Memory devices
148.It changer
149Medium Changer devices
150.It comm
151Communication devices
152.It array
153Storage Array devices
154.It enclosure
155Enclosure Services devices
156.It floppy
157Floppy devices
158.El
159.Pp
160.It interface:
161.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
162.It IDE
163Integrated Drive Electronics devices
164.It SCSI
165Small Computer System Interface devices
166.It other
167Any other device interface
168.El
169.Pp
170.It passthrough:
171.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
172.It pass
173Passthrough devices
174.El
175.El
176.Pp
177The user must specify at least one device type, and may specify at most
178one device type from each category.
179Multiple device types in a single
180device type statement must be separated by commas.
181.Pp
182Any number of
183.Fl p
184arguments may be specified on the command line.
185All
186.Fl p
187arguments are ORed together to form a matching expression against which
188all devices in the system are compared.
189Any device that fully matches
190any
191.Fl p
192argument will be included in the
193.Nm
194output, up to two devices, or the maximum number of devices specified
195by the user.
196.It Fl s
197Display the contents of the
198.Em sum
199structure, giving the total number of several kinds of paging related
200events which have occurred since system startup.
201.\" .It Fl t
202.\" Report on the number of page in and page reclaims since system startup,
203.\" and the amount of time required by each.
204.It Fl w
205Pause
206.Ar wait
207seconds between each display.
208If no repeat
209.Ar wait
210interval is specified, the default is 1 second.
211The
212.Nm
213command will accept and honor a non-integer number of seconds.
214.It Fl z
215Report on memory used by the kernel zone allocator,
216.Xr uma 9 ,
217by zone.
218.El
219.Pp
220The
221.Ar wait
222and
223.Ar count
224arguments may be given after their respective flags at any point
225on the command line before the
226.Ar disks
227argument(s), or without their flags, as the final argument(s).
228The latter form is accepted for backwards compatibility, but it is
229preferred to use the forms with
230.Fl w
231and
232.Fl c
233to avoid ambiguity.
234.Pp
235By default,
236.Nm
237displays the following information:
238.Bl -tag -width indent
239.It procs
240Information about the numbers of processes in various states.
241.Pp
242.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
243.It r
244in run queue
245.It b
246blocked for resources (i/o, paging, etc.)
247.It w
248runnable or short sleeper (< 20 secs) but swapped
249.El
250.It memory
251Information about the usage of virtual and real memory.
252Virtual pages (reported in units of 1024 bytes) are considered active if
253they belong to processes which are running or have run in the last 20
254seconds.
255.Pp
256.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
257.It avm
258active virtual pages
259.It fre
260size of the free list
261.El
262.It page
263Information about page faults and paging activity.
264These are averaged each five seconds, and given in units per second.
265.Pp
266.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
267.It flt
268total number of page faults
269.It re
270page reclaims (simulating reference bits)
271.\" .It at
272.\" pages attached (found in free list)
273.It pi
274pages paged in
275.It po
276pages paged out
277.It fr
278pages freed per second
279.\" .It de
280.\" anticipated short term memory shortfall
281.It sr
282pages scanned by clock algorithm, per-second
283.El
284.It disks
285Disk operations per second (this field is system dependent).
286Typically paging will be split across the available drives.
287The header of the field is the first two characters of the disk name and
288the unit number.
289If more than two disk drives are configured in the system,
290.Nm
291displays only the first two drives, unless the user specifies the
292.Fl n
293argument to increase the number of drives displayed.
294This will probably
295cause the display to exceed 80 columns, however.
296To force
297.Nm
298to display specific drives, their names may be supplied on the command line.
299The
300.Nm
301utility
302defaults to show disks first, and then various other random devices in the
303system to add up to two devices, if there are that many devices in the
304system.
305If devices are specified on the command line, or if a device type
306matching pattern is specified (see above),
307.Nm
308will only display the given devices or the devices matching the pattern,
309and will not randomly select other devices in the system.
310.It faults
311Trap/interrupt rate averages per second over last 5 seconds.
312.Pp
313.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
314.It in
315device interrupts per interval (including clock interrupts)
316.It sy
317system calls per interval
318.It cs
319cpu context switch rate (switches/interval)
320.El
321.It cpu
322Breakdown of percentage usage of CPU time.
323.Pp
324.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
325.It us
326user time for normal and low priority processes
327.It sy
328system time
329.It id
330cpu idle
331.El
332.El
333.Sh FILES
334.Bl -tag -width /boot/kernel/kernel -compact
335.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
336default kernel namelist
337.It Pa /dev/kmem
338default memory file
339.El
340.Sh EXAMPLES
341The command:
342.Dl vmstat -w 5
343will print what the system is doing every five
344seconds; this is a good choice of printing interval since this is how often
345some of the statistics are sampled in the system.
346Others vary every second and running the output for a while will make it
347apparent which are recomputed every second.
348.Pp
349The command:
350.Dl vmstat -p da -p cd -w 1
351will tell vmstat to select the first two direct access or CDROM devices
352and display statistics on those devices, as well as other systems
353statistics every second.
354.Sh SEE ALSO
355.Xr fstat 1 ,
356.Xr netstat 1 ,
357.Xr nfsstat 1 ,
358.Xr ps 1 ,
359.Xr systat 1 ,
360.Xr libmemstat 3 ,
361.Xr gstat 8 ,
362.Xr iostat 8 ,
363.Xr pstat 8 ,
364.Xr sysctl 8 ,
365.Xr malloc 9 ,
366.Xr uma 9
367.Pp
368The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity'' in
369.%T "Installing and Operating 4.3BSD" .
370.Sh BUGS
371The
372.Fl c
373and
374.Fl w
375options are only available with the default output.
376