xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/vmstat/vmstat.8 (revision 7660b554bc59a07be0431c17e0e33815818baa69)
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32.\"	@(#)vmstat.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd April 14, 2003
36.Dt VMSTAT 8
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm vmstat
40.Nd report virtual memory statistics
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.\" .Op Fl fimst
44.Op Fl fimsz
45.Op Fl c Ar count
46.Op Fl M Ar core
47.Op Fl N Ar system
48.Op Fl w Ar wait
49.Op Fl n Ar devs
50.Oo
51.Fl p
52.Sm off
53.Ar type , if , pass
54.Sm on
55.Oc
56.Op Ar disks
57.Sh DESCRIPTION
58The
59.Nm
60utility reports certain kernel statistics kept about process, virtual memory,
61disk, trap and cpu activity.
62.Pp
63The options are as follows:
64.Bl -tag -width indent
65.It Fl c
66Repeat the display
67.Ar count
68times.
69The first display is for the time since a reboot and each subsequent
70report is for the time period since the last display.
71If no repeat
72.Ar count
73is specified, and
74.Fl w
75is specified, the default is infinity, otherwise the default is one.
76.It Fl f
77Report on the number
78.Xr fork 2 ,
79.Xr vfork 2
80and
81.Xr rfork 2
82system calls since system startup, and the number of pages of virtual memory
83involved in each.
84.It Fl i
85Report on the number of interrupts taken by each device since system
86startup.
87.It Fl M
88Extract values associated with the name list from the specified
89.Ar core
90instead of the default
91.Pa /dev/kmem .
92.It Fl N
93Extract the name list from the specified
94.Ar system
95instead of the default
96.Pa /boot/kernel/kernel .
97.It Fl m
98Report on the usage of kernel dynamic memory listed first by size of
99allocation and then by type of usage.
100.It Fl n
101Change the maximum number of disks to display from the default of 2.
102.It Fl p
103Specify which types of devices to display.  There are three different
104categories of devices:
105.Pp
106.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
107.It device type:
108.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
109.It da
110Direct Access devices
111.It sa
112Sequential Access devices
113.It printer
114Printers
115.It proc
116Processor devices
117.It worm
118Write Once Read Multiple devices
119.It cd
120CD devices
121.It scanner
122Scanner devices
123.It optical
124Optical Memory devices
125.It changer
126Medium Changer devices
127.It comm
128Communication devices
129.It array
130Storage Array devices
131.It enclosure
132Enclosure Services devices
133.It floppy
134Floppy devices
135.El
136.Pp
137.It interface:
138.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
139.It IDE
140Integrated Drive Electronics devices
141.It SCSI
142Small Computer System Interface devices
143.It other
144Any other device interface
145.El
146.Pp
147.It passthrough:
148.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
149.It pass
150Passthrough devices
151.El
152.El
153.Pp
154The user must specify at least one device type, and may specify at most
155one device type from each category.  Multiple device types in a single
156device type statement must be separated by commas.
157.Pp
158Any number of
159.Fl p
160arguments may be specified on the command line.  All
161.Fl p
162arguments are ORed together to form a matching expression against which
163all devices in the system are compared.  Any device that fully matches
164any
165.Fl p
166argument will be included in the
167.Nm
168output, up to three devices, or the maximum number of devices specified
169by the user.
170.It Fl s
171Display the contents of the
172.Em sum
173structure, giving the total number of several kinds of paging related
174events which have occurred since system startup.
175.\" .It Fl t
176.\" Report on the number of page in and page reclaims since system startup,
177.\" and the amount of time required by each.
178.It Fl w
179Pause
180.Ar wait
181seconds between each display.
182If no repeat
183.Ar wait
184interval is specified, the default is 1 second.
185.It Fl z
186Report on memory used by the kernel zone allocator, by zone.
187The information shown is the same as that returned by the
188.Va vm.zone
189sysctl variable.
190.El
191.Pp
192By default,
193.Nm
194displays the following information:
195.Pp
196.Bl -tag -width indent
197.It procs
198Information about the numbers of processes in various states.
199.Pp
200.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
201.It r
202in run queue
203.It b
204blocked for resources (i/o, paging, etc.)
205.It w
206runnable or short sleeper (< 20 secs) but swapped
207.El
208.It memory
209Information about the usage of virtual and real memory.
210Virtual pages (reported in units of 1024 bytes) are considered active if
211they belong to processes which are running or have run in the last 20
212seconds.
213.Pp
214.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
215.It avm
216active virtual pages
217.It fre
218size of the free list
219.El
220.It page
221Information about page faults and paging activity.
222These are averaged each five seconds, and given in units per second.
223.Pp
224.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
225.It flt
226total number of page faults
227.It re
228page reclaims (simulating reference bits)
229.\" .It at
230.\" pages attached (found in free list)
231.It pi
232pages paged in
233.It po
234pages paged out
235.It fr
236pages freed per second
237.\" .It de
238.\" anticipated short term memory shortfall
239.It sr
240pages scanned by clock algorithm, per-second
241.El
242.It disks
243Disk operations per second (this field is system dependent).
244Typically paging will be split across the available drives.
245The header of the field is the first two characters of the disk name and
246the unit number.
247If more than three disk drives are configured in the system,
248.Nm
249displays only the first three drives, unless the user specifies the
250.Fl n
251argument to increase the number of drives displayed.  This will probably
252cause the display to exceed 80 columns, however.
253To force
254.Nm
255to display specific drives, their names may be supplied on the command line.
256The
257.Nm
258utility
259defaults to show disks first, and then various other random devices in the
260system to add up to three devices, if there are that many devices in the
261system.  If devices are specified on the command line, or if a device type
262matching pattern is specified (see above),
263.Nm
264will only display the given devices or the devices matching the pattern,
265and will not randomly select other devices in the system.
266.It faults
267Trap/interrupt rate averages per second over last 5 seconds.
268.Pp
269.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
270.It in
271device interrupts per interval (including clock interrupts)
272.It sy
273system calls per interval
274.It cs
275cpu context switch rate (switches/interval)
276.El
277.It cpu
278Breakdown of percentage usage of CPU time.
279.Pp
280.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
281.It us
282user time for normal and low priority processes
283.It sy
284system time
285.It id
286cpu idle
287.El
288.El
289.Sh EXAMPLES
290The command:
291.Dl vmstat -w 5
292will print what the system is doing every five
293seconds; this is a good choice of printing interval since this is how often
294some of the statistics are sampled in the system.
295Others vary every second and running the output for a while will make it
296apparent which are recomputed every second.
297.Pp
298The command:
299.Dl vmstat -p da -p cd -w 1
300will tell vmstat to select the first three direct access or CDROM devices
301and display statistics on those devices, as well as other systems
302statistics every second.
303.Sh FILES
304.Bl -tag -width /boot/kernel/kernel -compact
305.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
306default kernel namelist
307.It Pa /dev/kmem
308default memory file
309.El
310.Sh SEE ALSO
311.Xr fstat 1 ,
312.Xr netstat 1 ,
313.Xr nfsstat 1 ,
314.Xr ps 1 ,
315.Xr systat 1 ,
316.Xr iostat 8 ,
317.Xr pstat 8 ,
318.Xr sysctl 8
319.Pp
320The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity'' in
321.%T "Installing and Operating 4.3BSD" .
322.Sh BUGS
323The
324.Fl c
325and
326.Fl w
327options are only available with the default output.
328