xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/vmstat/vmstat.8 (revision e3f1789aa0cb42b00fd911a47b4fa459ac7d85ba)
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32.\"	@(#)vmstat.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd February 11, 2005
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 afimsz
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 i
98Report on the number of interrupts taken by each device since system
99startup.
100.It Fl M
101Extract values associated with the name list from the specified
102.Ar core .
103.It Fl N
104If
105.Fl M
106is also specified,
107extract the name list from the specified
108.Ar system
109instead of the default,
110which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
111.It Fl m
112Report on the usage of kernel dynamic memory listed first by size of
113allocation and then by type of usage.
114.It Fl n
115Change the maximum number of disks to display from the default of 2.
116.It Fl p
117Specify which types of devices to display.
118There are three different
119categories of devices:
120.Pp
121.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
122.It device type:
123.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
124.It da
125Direct Access devices
126.It sa
127Sequential Access devices
128.It printer
129Printers
130.It proc
131Processor devices
132.It worm
133Write Once Read Multiple devices
134.It cd
135CD devices
136.It scanner
137Scanner devices
138.It optical
139Optical Memory devices
140.It changer
141Medium Changer devices
142.It comm
143Communication devices
144.It array
145Storage Array devices
146.It enclosure
147Enclosure Services devices
148.It floppy
149Floppy devices
150.El
151.Pp
152.It interface:
153.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
154.It IDE
155Integrated Drive Electronics devices
156.It SCSI
157Small Computer System Interface devices
158.It other
159Any other device interface
160.El
161.Pp
162.It passthrough:
163.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
164.It pass
165Passthrough devices
166.El
167.El
168.Pp
169The user must specify at least one device type, and may specify at most
170one device type from each category.
171Multiple device types in a single
172device type statement must be separated by commas.
173.Pp
174Any number of
175.Fl p
176arguments may be specified on the command line.
177All
178.Fl p
179arguments are ORed together to form a matching expression against which
180all devices in the system are compared.
181Any device that fully matches
182any
183.Fl p
184argument will be included in the
185.Nm
186output, up to two devices, or the maximum number of devices specified
187by the user.
188.It Fl s
189Display the contents of the
190.Em sum
191structure, giving the total number of several kinds of paging related
192events which have occurred since system startup.
193.\" .It Fl t
194.\" Report on the number of page in and page reclaims since system startup,
195.\" and the amount of time required by each.
196.It Fl w
197Pause
198.Ar wait
199seconds between each display.
200If no repeat
201.Ar wait
202interval is specified, the default is 1 second.
203.It Fl z
204Report on memory used by the kernel zone allocator, by zone.
205The information shown is the same as that returned by the
206.Va vm.zone
207sysctl variable.
208.El
209.Pp
210By default,
211.Nm
212displays the following information:
213.Pp
214.Bl -tag -width indent
215.It procs
216Information about the numbers of processes in various states.
217.Pp
218.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
219.It r
220in run queue
221.It b
222blocked for resources (i/o, paging, etc.)
223.It w
224runnable or short sleeper (< 20 secs) but swapped
225.El
226.It memory
227Information about the usage of virtual and real memory.
228Virtual pages (reported in units of 1024 bytes) are considered active if
229they belong to processes which are running or have run in the last 20
230seconds.
231.Pp
232.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
233.It avm
234active virtual pages
235.It fre
236size of the free list
237.El
238.It page
239Information about page faults and paging activity.
240These are averaged each five seconds, and given in units per second.
241.Pp
242.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
243.It flt
244total number of page faults
245.It re
246page reclaims (simulating reference bits)
247.\" .It at
248.\" pages attached (found in free list)
249.It pi
250pages paged in
251.It po
252pages paged out
253.It fr
254pages freed per second
255.\" .It de
256.\" anticipated short term memory shortfall
257.It sr
258pages scanned by clock algorithm, per-second
259.El
260.It disks
261Disk operations per second (this field is system dependent).
262Typically paging will be split across the available drives.
263The header of the field is the first two characters of the disk name and
264the unit number.
265If more than two disk drives are configured in the system,
266.Nm
267displays only the first two drives, unless the user specifies the
268.Fl n
269argument to increase the number of drives displayed.
270This will probably
271cause the display to exceed 80 columns, however.
272To force
273.Nm
274to display specific drives, their names may be supplied on the command line.
275The
276.Nm
277utility
278defaults to show disks first, and then various other random devices in the
279system to add up to two devices, if there are that many devices in the
280system.
281If devices are specified on the command line, or if a device type
282matching pattern is specified (see above),
283.Nm
284will only display the given devices or the devices matching the pattern,
285and will not randomly select other devices in the system.
286.It faults
287Trap/interrupt rate averages per second over last 5 seconds.
288.Pp
289.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
290.It in
291device interrupts per interval (including clock interrupts)
292.It sy
293system calls per interval
294.It cs
295cpu context switch rate (switches/interval)
296.El
297.It cpu
298Breakdown of percentage usage of CPU time.
299.Pp
300.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
301.It us
302user time for normal and low priority processes
303.It sy
304system time
305.It id
306cpu idle
307.El
308.El
309.Sh FILES
310.Bl -tag -width /boot/kernel/kernel -compact
311.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
312default kernel namelist
313.It Pa /dev/kmem
314default memory file
315.El
316.Sh EXAMPLES
317The command:
318.Dl vmstat -w 5
319will print what the system is doing every five
320seconds; this is a good choice of printing interval since this is how often
321some of the statistics are sampled in the system.
322Others vary every second and running the output for a while will make it
323apparent which are recomputed every second.
324.Pp
325The command:
326.Dl vmstat -p da -p cd -w 1
327will tell vmstat to select the first two direct access or CDROM devices
328and display statistics on those devices, as well as other systems
329statistics every second.
330.Sh SEE ALSO
331.Xr fstat 1 ,
332.Xr netstat 1 ,
333.Xr nfsstat 1 ,
334.Xr ps 1 ,
335.Xr systat 1 ,
336.Xr gstat 8 ,
337.Xr iostat 8 ,
338.Xr pstat 8 ,
339.Xr sysctl 8
340.Pp
341The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity'' in
342.%T "Installing and Operating 4.3BSD" .
343.Sh BUGS
344The
345.Fl c
346and
347.Fl w
348options are only available with the default output.
349