alan@shodha.enet.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) (10/04/90)
Monitor is a performance monitoring tool inspired by
the program 'mon' written by Phillip Dykstra. Other
features were suggested by users and inspired by other
similiar programs. I'll include a copy of the current
man page for those that aren't familiar with it. The
current monitor distribution consists of two compressed
tar archives on gatekeeper.dec.com:
pub/DEC/monitor.tar.Z
pub/DEC/monitor_v4src.tar.Z
The first is the general distribution which includes
old sources, example programs and tools, what passes
for documentation and other bits of trivia. The 2nd
is an archive of sources that will (with the correct
Makefile) compile on ULTRIX V4.0, ULTRIX V3.1 and
ULTRIX V3.0 for both VAX and MIPS architectures. It
may compile on V3.1D. I'm not sure about V3.1C and
V3.1B.
Monitor IS NOT supported by Digital Equipment Corporation.
I work on it in my spare time, but will cheerfuly accept
bug reports and suggestions. I will at least try to ack-
nowledge that I recieved your message. You can mail them
to:
alan@nabeth.enet.dec.com
Since monitor reads from /dev/kmem and sometimes /dev/drum
and /dev/mem it will need to run setgid group kmem. It is
also able to write files with option of changing the default
name of the file. Please make sure that no important files
are writtable by group kmem.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CUT HERE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
24 August 1990 MONITOR(1)
NAME
monitor - display system activity
SYNOPSIS
monitor [ collection ] [ display ] [ data ] [ options ]
DESCRIPTION
Monitor is a program for collecting data on system activity.
Depending on the options chosen this data can be displayed
or saved in a file for later review. Monitor allows the
user to select the data collection mode, display mode and
the data to be collected.
Live, replay and names are the currently supported collec-
tion modes. In live mode the data is collected from the
running system. In replay mode the data is read from a file
created by an earlier run of monitor. Names is a special
collection mode that prints what it can about the system
configuration. The other options, data options and display
modes have no effect on this option.
The currently supported display modes are save, read, and
screen. In save mode the data is collected and written to a
file. The format of this file is documented in Monitor:
Guide for Programmers. In screen mode the data is formatted
according to the data options and displayed on the user's
terminal using curses(3). The display mode read dumps in
textual form the contents of collected records.
The currently supported data options are:
buf - Buffer cache statistics.
cpu - Time in CPU states, context switches, etc.
pid - Collect data on individual process.
tty - TTY input and output counts.
disk - Disk I/O data.
free - Free memory measure in pages.
fork - Fork and vfork counts.
page - Paging information.
swap - Swap space utilization.
namei - Namei Cache statistics.
users - Number of users logged on.
netif - Network interface data.
memory - Memory utilization.
process - Number of processes in various states.
loadave - The "load average".
There are also some "grouped" data options:
io - Disk + netif + tty.
os - CPU + fork + page + memory.
mon - Everything, but swap, namei and buf.
all - Everything.
The data options are fully documented in Monitor: Guide for
Users. Some data options allow further selection on a unit
basis. These are cpu, disk and netif. The format of these
options is:
data-option=unit[,unit]
Examples:
netif=de0,dmc0
disk=ra0,ra2,hp0
All options may be abbreviated.
The pid data option requires a value to be supplied in the
format pid=# where # is the process id the process you want
to monitor.
Commands supported in screen mode are:
^L - Redraw the screen.
r - Redraw the screen.
q - Quit, same as Exit.
e - Exit, same as Quit.
p - Pause the session.
h - Help.
? - Help.
d - Dump a copy of the screen to screen.dump.
m - Magnify a data record.
u - Unmagnify - return to the normal display.
OPTIONS
-help
Print a help listing.
-magnify data-option
The magnify function for the selected data option is
used instead of the normal screen function.
-file file
In save mode, save the output in file.
-output file
File to be used for screen dumps.
-prompt prompt
Set the screen mode prompt to prompt.
-sleep #
Sleep for # seconds between samples.
-total
When disk is a selected data option in screen mode,
print the I/O totals.
-version
Print the version string and exit.
-sample
The first and sample data records are enabled for mag-
nification.
DEFAULTS
display mode - screen
collection mode - live
-sleep - 10 minutes in save, dependent on tty speed in
screen.
> 9600 - 2 seconds
4800 - 3 seconds
2400 - 3 seconds
1200 - 5 seconds
300 - 8 seconds
-prompt - "monitor> "
-file - monitor.dat
-output - screen.dump
There are no default data options.
FILES
/dev/kmem, /dev/drum, /dev/mem, /vmunix, screen.dump,
monitor.dat
/vmunix is used to obtain the name list of the running ker-
nel. /dev/kmem is used to collect the system performance
data. /dev/drum and /dev/mem are used to collect data for
the pid option.
DIAGNOSTICS
Please see Monitor: Guide to Error Messages for a complete
list with explainations.
SEE ALSO
The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity''
in Installing and Operating 4.2bsd, Monitor: Guide for Pro-
grammers and Monitor: Guide for Users.
RESTRICTIONS
The current version of monitor was not designed to run as a
setuid or setgid program. Please see the release notes for
further details.
BUGS
The documentation for monitor is incomplete. Older versions
of the Monitor: User's and Programming Guide are included in
the distribution. The only section of the documentation
that is up to date is the Monitor: Guide to Error Messages.
--
Alan Rollow alan@nabeth.enet.dec.com