xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/vmstat/vmstat.8 (revision b78ee15e9f04ae15c3e1200df974473167524d17)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1986, 1993
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14.\"    without specific prior written permission.
15.\"
16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
26.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
27.\"
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 afHhimoPsz
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 o
123Display a list of virtual memory objects in the system and the resident
124memory used by each object.
125.It Fl P
126Report per-cpu system/user/idle cpu statistics.
127.It Fl p
128Specify which types of devices to display.
129There are three different
130categories of devices:
131.Pp
132.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
133.It device type:
134.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
135.It da
136Direct Access devices
137.It sa
138Sequential Access devices
139.It printer
140Printers
141.It proc
142Processor devices
143.It worm
144Write Once Read Multiple devices
145.It cd
146CD devices
147.It scanner
148Scanner devices
149.It optical
150Optical Memory devices
151.It changer
152Medium Changer devices
153.It comm
154Communication devices
155.It array
156Storage Array devices
157.It enclosure
158Enclosure Services devices
159.It floppy
160Floppy devices
161.El
162.Pp
163.It interface:
164.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
165.It IDE
166Integrated Drive Electronics devices
167.It SCSI
168Small Computer System Interface devices
169.It other
170Any other device interface
171.El
172.Pp
173.It passthrough:
174.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
175.It pass
176Passthrough devices
177.El
178.El
179.Pp
180The user must specify at least one device type, and may specify at most
181one device type from each category.
182Multiple device types in a single
183device type statement must be separated by commas.
184.Pp
185Any number of
186.Fl p
187arguments may be specified on the command line.
188All
189.Fl p
190arguments are ORed together to form a matching expression against which
191all devices in the system are compared.
192Any device that fully matches
193any
194.Fl p
195argument will be included in the
196.Nm
197output, up to two devices, or the maximum number of devices specified
198by the user.
199.It Fl s
200Display the contents of the
201.Em sum
202structure, giving the total number of several kinds of paging related
203events which have occurred since system startup.
204.\" .It Fl t
205.\" Report on the number of page in and page reclaims since system startup,
206.\" and the amount of time required by each.
207.It Fl w
208Pause
209.Ar wait
210seconds between each display.
211If no repeat
212.Ar wait
213interval is specified, the default is 1 second.
214The
215.Nm
216command will accept and honor a non-integer number of seconds.
217.It Fl z
218Report on memory used by the kernel zone allocator,
219.Xr uma 9 ,
220by zone.
221.El
222.Pp
223The
224.Ar wait
225and
226.Ar count
227arguments may be given after their respective flags at any point
228on the command line before the
229.Ar disks
230argument(s), or without their flags, as the final argument(s).
231The latter form is accepted for backwards compatibility, but it is
232preferred to use the forms with
233.Fl w
234and
235.Fl c
236to avoid ambiguity.
237.Pp
238By default,
239.Nm
240displays the following information:
241.Bl -tag -width indent
242.It procs
243Information about the numbers of processes in various states.
244.Pp
245.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
246.It r
247in run queue
248.It b
249blocked for resources (i/o, paging, etc.)
250.It w
251runnable or short sleeper (< 20 secs) but swapped
252.El
253.It memory
254Information about the usage of virtual and real memory.
255Virtual pages (reported in units of 1024 bytes) are considered active if
256they belong to processes which are running or have run in the last 20
257seconds.
258.Pp
259.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
260.It avm
261active virtual pages
262.It fre
263size of the free list
264.El
265.It page
266Information about page faults and paging activity.
267These are averaged each five seconds, and given in units per second.
268.Pp
269.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
270.It flt
271total number of page faults
272.It re
273page reclaims (simulating reference bits)
274.\" .It at
275.\" pages attached (found in free list)
276.It pi
277pages paged in
278.It po
279pages paged out
280.It fr
281pages freed per second
282.\" .It de
283.\" anticipated short term memory shortfall
284.It sr
285pages scanned by clock algorithm, per-second
286.El
287.It disks
288Disk operations per second (this field is system dependent).
289Typically paging will be split across the available drives.
290The header of the field is the first two characters of the disk name and
291the unit number.
292If more than two disk drives are configured in the system,
293.Nm
294displays only the first two drives, unless the user specifies the
295.Fl n
296argument to increase the number of drives displayed.
297This will probably
298cause the display to exceed 80 columns, however.
299To force
300.Nm
301to display specific drives, their names may be supplied on the command line.
302The
303.Nm
304utility
305defaults to show disks first, and then various other random devices in the
306system to add up to two devices, if there are that many devices in the
307system.
308If devices are specified on the command line, or if a device type
309matching pattern is specified (see above),
310.Nm
311will only display the given devices or the devices matching the pattern,
312and will not randomly select other devices in the system.
313.It faults
314Trap/interrupt rate averages per second over last 5 seconds.
315.Pp
316.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
317.It in
318device interrupts per interval (including clock interrupts)
319.It sy
320system calls per interval
321.It cs
322cpu context switch rate (switches/interval)
323.El
324.It cpu
325Breakdown of percentage usage of CPU time.
326.Pp
327.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
328.It us
329user time for normal and low priority processes
330.It sy
331system time
332.It id
333cpu idle
334.El
335.El
336.Sh FILES
337.Bl -tag -width /boot/kernel/kernel -compact
338.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
339default kernel namelist
340.It Pa /dev/kmem
341default memory file
342.El
343.Sh EXAMPLES
344The command:
345.Dl vmstat -w 5
346will print what the system is doing every five
347seconds; this is a good choice of printing interval since this is how often
348some of the statistics are sampled in the system.
349Others vary every second and running the output for a while will make it
350apparent which are recomputed every second.
351.Pp
352The command:
353.Dl vmstat -p da -p cd -w 1
354will tell vmstat to select the first two direct access or CDROM devices
355and display statistics on those devices, as well as other systems
356statistics every second.
357.Sh SEE ALSO
358.Xr fstat 1 ,
359.Xr netstat 1 ,
360.Xr nfsstat 1 ,
361.Xr ps 1 ,
362.Xr systat 1 ,
363.Xr libmemstat 3 ,
364.Xr gstat 8 ,
365.Xr iostat 8 ,
366.Xr pstat 8 ,
367.Xr sysctl 8 ,
368.Xr malloc 9 ,
369.Xr uma 9
370.Pp
371The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity'' in
372.%T "Installing and Operating 4.3BSD" .
373.Sh BUGS
374The
375.Fl c
376and
377.Fl w
378options are only available with the default output.
379