ken@wcsn.csms.com (Kenneth D. Fox WCSN Sr. Operations Engineer) (05/31/91)
I have a question about the <vmstat> and <pstat> commands.
First I should tell you that I am not a veteran uni* user.
I would like to know (in plan english) what the output
of this command is telling me.
procs paging system cpu
r b w si so ch cm ffr swr sww rec shf shc cpy pf in sy cs us su id
1 35 0 242 264 59101 20218 20218 3422 4092 11547 188289 25300 56957 2286554 3171315 3922640 350882 1 1 98
Is there an easy way to interpret the data. I assume that this
data is used to "tune" the operating system. I have read the
manual.
Thank You,
KEN
Ham Radio: N1HTI (No One's Happy Tax Increase!)
--
Kenneth D. Fox--Senior Operations Engineer
WCSN - An International Broadcast Station of
The Christian Science Monitor Syndicate, Inc.
"Wisdom...comes not from age, but from education and learning"
---Anton Checkhovtorek@elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) (06/02/91)
In article <162@wcsn.csms.com> ken@wcsn.csms.com (Kenneth D. Fox WCSN Sr. Operations Engineer) writes: >I would like to know (in plain english) what the output of [vmstat] >is telling me. This is probably impossible; ordinary English does not have concepts like `paging' and `virtual memory' and `context switches'. Your best bet is to pick up a book on Unix internals (e.g., the Bach System V or Karels/Leffler/McKusick/Quarterman BSD book). In any case: > procs paging system cpu >r b w si so ch cm ffr swr sww rec shf shc cpy pf in sy cs us su id this is not a standard BSD header. The usual BSD header looks like: procs memory page disk faults cpu r b w avm fre re at pi po fr de sr s0 d1 d2 d3 in sy cs us sy id so you should mention whose machines and operating systems you use. -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Lawrence Berkeley Lab CSE/EE (+1 415 486 5427) Berkeley, CA Domain: torek@ee.lbl.gov
rfarris@rfengr.com (Rick Farris) (06/03/91)
In article <162@wcsn.csms.com> ken@wcsn.csms.com (Kenneth D. Fox WCSN Sr. Operations Engineer) writes: > I would like to know (in plan english) what the output > of this command is telling me. > procs paging system cpu > r b w si so ch cm ffr swr sww rec shf shc cpy pf in sy cs us su id > > 1 35 0 242 264 59101 20218 20218 3422 4092 11547 188289 25300 56957 2286554 3171315 3922640 350882 1 1 98 If you'd like the english version, try "vmstat -s" (I guess the "s" stands for "strings"). It will print out a "plain english" summary. For even more valuable information, try "sar -A" -- you may have to be root to access this command. For info on what to do with the data once you have it, try: "System Performance Tuning" by Mike Loukides, published by O'Reilly and Associates. For a graphical display of all of these parameters, try "Monitor: A Performance Analyser for Unix Systems" from Stallion Technologies (see the review in Unix World, November 1990, pp121-124), or "Permon", from Shuss Systems (908) 225-2424, which comes with the aforementioned book by Loukides. -- Rick Farris RF Engineering POB M Del Mar, CA 92014 voice (619) 259-6793 rfarris@rfengr.com ...!ucsd!serene!rfarris serenity bbs 259-7757
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (06/04/91)
>For even more valuable information, try "sar -A" -- you may >have to be root to access this command. You may even have to have it on your system in order to access it. :-) Not all UNIX systems have "vmstat", not all have "sar"; "vmstat" was done at Berkeley, "sar" done by the System V folk, and unless a system has grabbed stuff from both BSD and S5 streams, including both "vmstat" and "sar", it won't have both. Given that the output of "vmstat" on the original poster's system isn't the output you get from BSD's "vmstat", as noted by Chris Torek, the system isn't straight BSD; whether it has "sar" or not, I dunno, because I don't know what kind of system it is. Advice to askers of questions: indicate what flavor of UNIX you're using, and what release of that flavor, so that answerers of questions can have a chance at guessing what facilities you do or don't have on your system.