xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/vmstat/vmstat.8 (revision a3cf0ef5a295c885c895fabfd56470c0d1db322d)
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32.\"	@(#)vmstat.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd October 21, 2006
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 afHhimPsz
45.Op Fl c Ar count
46.Op Fl M Ar core Op Fl N Ar system
47.Op Fl w Ar wait
48.Op Fl n Ar devs
49.Oo
50.Fl p
51.Sm off
52.Ar type , if , pass
53.Sm on
54.Oc
55.Op Ar disks
56.Sh DESCRIPTION
57The
58.Nm
59utility reports certain kernel statistics kept about process, virtual memory,
60disk, trap and cpu activity.
61.Pp
62If the
63.Fl M
64option is not specified, information is obtained from
65the currently running kernel via the
66.Xr sysctl 3
67interface.
68Otherwise, information is read from the specified core file,
69using the name list from the specified kernel image (or from
70the default image).
71.Pp
72The options are as follows:
73.Bl -tag -width indent
74.It Fl a
75When used with
76.Fl i ,
77include statistics about interrupts that have never been generated.
78.It Fl c
79Repeat the display
80.Ar count
81times.
82The first display is for the time since a reboot and each subsequent
83report is for the time period since the last display.
84If no repeat
85.Ar count
86is specified, and
87.Fl w
88is specified, the default is infinity, otherwise the default is one.
89.It Fl f
90Report on the number
91.Xr fork 2 ,
92.Xr vfork 2
93and
94.Xr rfork 2
95system calls since system startup, and the number of pages of virtual memory
96involved in each.
97.It Fl h
98Changes memory columns into more easily human readable form.  Default if
99standard output is a terminal device.
100.It Fl H
101Changes memory columns into straight numbers.  Default if standard output
102is not a terminal device (such as a script).
103.It Fl i
104Report on the number of interrupts taken by each device since system
105startup.
106.It Fl M
107Extract values associated with the name list from the specified
108.Ar core .
109.It Fl N
110If
111.Fl M
112is also specified,
113extract the name list from the specified
114.Ar system
115instead of the default,
116which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
117.It Fl m
118Report on the usage of kernel dynamic memory allocated using
119.Xr malloc 9
120by type.
121.It Fl n
122Change the maximum number of disks to display from the default of 2.
123.It Fl P
124Report per-cpu system/user/idle cpu statistics.
125.It Fl p
126Specify which types of devices to display.
127There are three different
128categories of devices:
129.Pp
130.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
131.It device type:
132.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
133.It da
134Direct Access devices
135.It sa
136Sequential Access devices
137.It printer
138Printers
139.It proc
140Processor devices
141.It worm
142Write Once Read Multiple devices
143.It cd
144CD devices
145.It scanner
146Scanner devices
147.It optical
148Optical Memory devices
149.It changer
150Medium Changer devices
151.It comm
152Communication devices
153.It array
154Storage Array devices
155.It enclosure
156Enclosure Services devices
157.It floppy
158Floppy devices
159.El
160.Pp
161.It interface:
162.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
163.It IDE
164Integrated Drive Electronics devices
165.It SCSI
166Small Computer System Interface devices
167.It other
168Any other device interface
169.El
170.Pp
171.It passthrough:
172.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
173.It pass
174Passthrough devices
175.El
176.El
177.Pp
178The user must specify at least one device type, and may specify at most
179one device type from each category.
180Multiple device types in a single
181device type statement must be separated by commas.
182.Pp
183Any number of
184.Fl p
185arguments may be specified on the command line.
186All
187.Fl p
188arguments are ORed together to form a matching expression against which
189all devices in the system are compared.
190Any device that fully matches
191any
192.Fl p
193argument will be included in the
194.Nm
195output, up to two devices, or the maximum number of devices specified
196by the user.
197.It Fl s
198Display the contents of the
199.Em sum
200structure, giving the total number of several kinds of paging related
201events which have occurred since system startup.
202.\" .It Fl t
203.\" Report on the number of page in and page reclaims since system startup,
204.\" and the amount of time required by each.
205.It Fl w
206Pause
207.Ar wait
208seconds between each display.
209If no repeat
210.Ar wait
211interval is specified, the default is 1 second.
212The
213.Nm
214command will accept and honor a non-integer number of seconds.
215.It Fl z
216Report on memory used by the kernel zone allocator,
217.Xr uma 9 ,
218by zone.
219.El
220.Pp
221By default,
222.Nm
223displays the following information:
224.Bl -tag -width indent
225.It procs
226Information about the numbers of processes in various states.
227.Pp
228.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
229.It r
230in run queue
231.It b
232blocked for resources (i/o, paging, etc.)
233.It w
234runnable or short sleeper (< 20 secs) but swapped
235.El
236.It memory
237Information about the usage of virtual and real memory.
238Virtual pages (reported in units of 1024 bytes) are considered active if
239they belong to processes which are running or have run in the last 20
240seconds.
241.Pp
242.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
243.It avm
244active virtual pages
245.It fre
246size of the free list
247.El
248.It page
249Information about page faults and paging activity.
250These are averaged each five seconds, and given in units per second.
251.Pp
252.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
253.It flt
254total number of page faults
255.It re
256page reclaims (simulating reference bits)
257.\" .It at
258.\" pages attached (found in free list)
259.It pi
260pages paged in
261.It po
262pages paged out
263.It fr
264pages freed per second
265.\" .It de
266.\" anticipated short term memory shortfall
267.It sr
268pages scanned by clock algorithm, per-second
269.El
270.It disks
271Disk operations per second (this field is system dependent).
272Typically paging will be split across the available drives.
273The header of the field is the first two characters of the disk name and
274the unit number.
275If more than two disk drives are configured in the system,
276.Nm
277displays only the first two drives, unless the user specifies the
278.Fl n
279argument to increase the number of drives displayed.
280This will probably
281cause the display to exceed 80 columns, however.
282To force
283.Nm
284to display specific drives, their names may be supplied on the command line.
285The
286.Nm
287utility
288defaults to show disks first, and then various other random devices in the
289system to add up to two devices, if there are that many devices in the
290system.
291If devices are specified on the command line, or if a device type
292matching pattern is specified (see above),
293.Nm
294will only display the given devices or the devices matching the pattern,
295and will not randomly select other devices in the system.
296.It faults
297Trap/interrupt rate averages per second over last 5 seconds.
298.Pp
299.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
300.It in
301device interrupts per interval (including clock interrupts)
302.It sy
303system calls per interval
304.It cs
305cpu context switch rate (switches/interval)
306.El
307.It cpu
308Breakdown of percentage usage of CPU time.
309.Pp
310.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
311.It us
312user time for normal and low priority processes
313.It sy
314system time
315.It id
316cpu idle
317.El
318.El
319.Sh FILES
320.Bl -tag -width /boot/kernel/kernel -compact
321.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
322default kernel namelist
323.It Pa /dev/kmem
324default memory file
325.El
326.Sh EXAMPLES
327The command:
328.Dl vmstat -w 5
329will print what the system is doing every five
330seconds; this is a good choice of printing interval since this is how often
331some of the statistics are sampled in the system.
332Others vary every second and running the output for a while will make it
333apparent which are recomputed every second.
334.Pp
335The command:
336.Dl vmstat -p da -p cd -w 1
337will tell vmstat to select the first two direct access or CDROM devices
338and display statistics on those devices, as well as other systems
339statistics every second.
340.Sh SEE ALSO
341.Xr fstat 1 ,
342.Xr netstat 1 ,
343.Xr nfsstat 1 ,
344.Xr ps 1 ,
345.Xr systat 1 ,
346.Xr libmemstat 3 ,
347.Xr gstat 8 ,
348.Xr iostat 8 ,
349.Xr pstat 8 ,
350.Xr sysctl 8 ,
351.Xr malloc 9 ,
352.Xr uma 9
353.Pp
354The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity'' in
355.%T "Installing and Operating 4.3BSD" .
356.Sh BUGS
357The
358.Fl c
359and
360.Fl w
361options are only available with the default output.
362