xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/vmstat/vmstat.8 (revision f7c32ed617858bcd22f8d1b03199099d50125721)
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28.\"	@(#)vmstat.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd June 21, 2021
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 -libxo
41.Op Fl afHhimoPsz
42.Op Fl M Ar core Op Fl N Ar system
43.Op Fl c Ar count
44.Op Fl n Ar devs
45.Oo
46.Fl p
47.Sm off
48.Ar type , if , pass
49.Sm on
50.Oc
51.Op Fl w Ar wait
52.Op Ar disks ...
53.Op wait Op count
54.Sh DESCRIPTION
55The
56.Nm
57utility reports certain kernel statistics kept about process, virtual memory,
58disk, trap and cpu activity.
59.Pp
60If the
61.Fl M
62option is not specified, information is obtained from
63the currently running kernel via the
64.Xr sysctl 3
65interface.
66Otherwise, information is read from the specified core file,
67using the name list from the specified kernel image (or from
68the default image).
69.Pp
70The options are as follows:
71.Bl -tag -width indent
72.It Fl -libxo
73Generate output via
74.Xr libxo 3
75in a selection of different human and machine readable formats.
76See
77.Xr xo_parse_args 3
78for details on command line arguments.
79.It Fl a
80When used with
81.Fl i ,
82include statistics about interrupts that have never been generated.
83.It Fl c
84Repeat the display
85.Ar count
86times.
87The first display is for the time since a reboot and each subsequent
88report is for the time period since the last display.
89If no repeat
90.Ar count
91is specified, and
92.Fl w
93is specified, the default is infinity, otherwise the default is one.
94.It Fl f
95Report on the number
96.Xr fork 2 ,
97.Xr vfork 2
98and
99.Xr rfork 2
100system calls since system startup, and the number of pages of virtual memory
101involved in each.
102.It Fl h
103Changes memory columns into more easily human readable form.
104The default if
105standard output is a terminal device.
106.It Fl H
107Changes memory columns into straight numbers.
108The default if standard output
109is not a terminal device (such as a script).
110.It Fl i
111Report on the number of interrupts taken by each device since system
112startup.
113.It Fl M
114Extract values associated with the name list from the specified
115.Ar core .
116.It Fl N
117If
118.Fl M
119is also specified,
120extract the name list from the specified
121.Ar system
122instead of the default,
123which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
124.It Fl m
125Report on the usage of kernel dynamic memory allocated using
126.Xr malloc 9
127by type.
128.It Fl n
129Change the maximum number of disks to display from the default of 2.
130.It Fl o
131Display a list of virtual memory objects in the system and the resident
132memory used by each object.
133.It Fl P
134Report per-cpu system/user/idle cpu statistics.
135.It Fl p
136Specify which types of devices to display.
137There are three different
138categories of devices:
139.Pp
140.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
141.It device type:
142.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
143.It da
144Direct Access devices
145.It sa
146Sequential Access devices
147.It printer
148Printers
149.It proc
150Processor devices
151.It worm
152Write Once Read Multiple devices
153.It cd
154CD devices
155.It scanner
156Scanner devices
157.It optical
158Optical Memory devices
159.It changer
160Medium Changer devices
161.It comm
162Communication devices
163.It array
164Storage Array devices
165.It enclosure
166Enclosure Services devices
167.It floppy
168Floppy devices
169.El
170.Pp
171.It interface:
172.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
173.It IDE
174Integrated Drive Electronics devices
175.It SCSI
176Small Computer System Interface devices
177.It other
178Any other device interface
179.El
180.Pp
181.It passthrough:
182.Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
183.It pass
184Passthrough devices
185.El
186.El
187.Pp
188The user must specify at least one device type, and may specify at most
189one device type from each category.
190Multiple device types in a single
191device type statement must be separated by commas.
192.Pp
193Any number of
194.Fl p
195arguments may be specified on the command line.
196All
197.Fl p
198arguments are ORed together to form a matching expression against which
199all devices in the system are compared.
200Any device that fully matches
201any
202.Fl p
203argument will be included in the
204.Nm
205output, up to two devices, or the maximum number of devices specified
206by the user.
207.It Fl s
208Display the contents of the
209.Em sum
210structure, giving the total number of several kinds of paging related
211events which have occurred since system startup.
212.It Fl w
213Pause
214.Ar wait
215seconds between each display.
216If no repeat
217.Ar wait
218interval is specified, the default is 1 second.
219The
220.Nm
221command will accept and honor a non-integer number of seconds.
222.It Fl z
223Report on memory used by the kernel zone allocator,
224.Xr uma 9 ,
225by zone.
226.El
227.Pp
228The
229.Ar wait
230and
231.Ar count
232arguments may be given after their respective flags at any point
233on the command line before the
234.Ar disks
235argument(s), or without their flags, as the final argument(s).
236The latter form is accepted for backwards compatibility, but it is
237preferred to use the forms with
238.Fl w
239and
240.Fl c
241to avoid ambiguity.
242.Pp
243By default,
244.Nm
245displays the following information:
246.Bl -tag -width indent
247.It procs
248Information about the number of threads in various states:
249.Pp
250.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
251.It r
252running or in run queue
253.It b
254blocked for resources (i/o, paging, etc.)
255.It w
256swapped out
257.El
258.It memory
259Information about the usage of virtual and real memory.
260.Pp
261Mapped virtual memory is a sum of all of the virtual pages belonging
262to mapped virtual memory objects.
263Note that the entire memory object's size is considered mapped even if
264only a subset of the object's pages are currently mapped.
265This statistic is not related to the active page queue which is used to track
266real memory.
267.Pp
268.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
269.It avm
270mapped virtual memory
271.Po previously called active in
272.Nm
273output
274.Pc
275.It fre
276size of the free list
277.El
278.It page
279Information about page faults and paging activity.
280These are given in units per second.
281.Pp
282.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
283.It flt
284total number of page faults
285.It re
286pages reactivated (found in laundry or inactive queues)
287.\" .It at
288.\" pages attached (found in free list)
289.It pi
290pages paged in
291.It po
292pages paged out
293.It fr
294pages freed
295.\" .It de
296.\" anticipated short term memory shortfall
297.It sr
298pages scanned by page daemon
299.El
300.It disks
301Disk operations per second (this field is system dependent).
302Typically paging will be split across the available drives.
303The header of the field is the first two characters of the disk name and
304the unit number.
305If more than two disk drives are configured in the system,
306.Nm
307displays only the first two drives, unless the user specifies the
308.Fl n
309argument to increase the number of drives displayed.
310This will probably
311cause the display to exceed 80 columns, however.
312To force
313.Nm
314to display specific drives, their names may be supplied on the command line.
315The
316.Nm
317utility
318defaults to show disks first, and then various other random devices in the
319system to add up to two devices, if there are that many devices in the
320system.
321If devices are specified on the command line, or if a device type
322matching pattern is specified (see above),
323.Nm
324will only display the given devices or the devices matching the pattern,
325and will not randomly select other devices in the system.
326.It faults
327Trap/interrupt rates per second.
328.Pp
329.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
330.It in
331device interrupts (including clock interrupts)
332.It sy
333system calls
334.It cs
335cpu context switches
336.El
337.It cpu
338Breakdown of percentage usage of CPU time.
339.Pp
340.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
341.It us
342user time for normal and low priority processes
343.It sy
344system and interrupt time
345.It id
346cpu idle
347.El
348.El
349.Sh FILES
350.Bl -tag -width /boot/kernel/kernel -compact
351.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
352default kernel namelist
353.It Pa /dev/kmem
354default memory file
355.El
356.Sh EXAMPLES
357The command:
358.Dl vmstat -w 5
359will print what the system is doing every five
360seconds.
361.Pp
362The command:
363.Dl vmstat -p da -p cd -w 1
364will tell vmstat to select the first two direct access or CDROM devices
365and display statistics on those devices, as well as other systems
366statistics every second.
367.Sh SEE ALSO
368.Xr fstat 1 ,
369.Xr netstat 1 ,
370.Xr nfsstat 1 ,
371.Xr ps 1 ,
372.Xr systat 1 ,
373.Xr libmemstat 3 ,
374.Xr libxo 3 ,
375.Xr xo_parse_args 3 ,
376.Xr gstat 8 ,
377.Xr iostat 8 ,
378.Xr pstat 8 ,
379.Xr sysctl 8 ,
380.Xr malloc 9 ,
381.Xr uma 9
382.Pp
383The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity'' in
384.%T "Installing and Operating 4.3BSD" .
385.Sh HISTORY
386The
387.Nm
388utility first appeared in
389.Bx 3 .
390.Sh BUGS
391The
392.Fl c
393and
394.Fl w
395options are only available with the default output.
396