1PROCINFO(8) Linux System Manual PROCINFO(8)
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6 procinfo - display system status gathered from /proc
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10 procinfo [ -fsmadiDSbrChv ] [ -nN ] [ -Ffile ]
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14 procinfo gathers some system data from the /proc directory and prints
15 it nicely formatted on the standard output device.
16 The meanings of the fields are as follows:
18 Memory:
21 See the man page for free(1) (preferably the proc-version of
22 free (If you weren't around during the Linux 1.x days, that's
23 the only version of free you'll have)).
24 Bootup:
27 The time the system was booted.
28 Load average:
31 The average number of jobs running, followed by the number of
32 runnable processes and the total number of processes (if your
33 kernel is recent enough), followed by the PID of the last
34 process run (idem).
35 user: The amount of time spent running jobs in user space.
38 nice: The amount of time spent running niced jobs in user space.
41 system:
44 The amount of time spent running in kernel space. Note: the
45 time spent servicing interrupts is not counted by the kernel
46 (and nothing that procinfo can do about it).
47 idle: The amount of time spent doing nothing.
50 steal: The amount of time spent the virtual CPU waiting for physical
53 CPU.
54 uptime:
57 The time that the system has been up. The above four should more
58 or less add up to this one.
59 page in:
62 The number of disk block paged into core from disk. (A block is
63 almost always 1 kilobyte).
64 page out:
67 The reverse of the above. (What does that mean, anyways?)
68 swap in:
71 The number of memory pages paged in from swapspace.
72 swap out:
75 The number of memory pages paged out to swapspace.
76 context:
79 The total number of context switches since bootup.
80 disk 1-4:
83 The number of times your hard disks have been accessed. This
84 won't work for 1.0.x/1.1.x kernels unless you have applied the
85 diskstat patch available elsewhere to your kernel, and might
86 give surprising results if all your hard disks are of the same
87 type (e.g. all IDE, all SCSI). [I'm not sure to what extend this
88 is still true with recent kernels, but I don't have a mixed sys‐
89 tem so I can't check.]
90 Interrupts:
93 This is either a single number for all IRQ channels together if
94 your kernel is older than version 1.0.5, or two rows of numbers
95 for each IRQ channel if your kernel is at version 1.0.5 or
96 later. On Intel architecture there are sixteen different IRQ
97 channels, and their default meanings are as follows:
98 0 Timer channel 0
100 1 Keyboard
101 2 Cascade for controller 2 (which controls IRQ 8-15)
102 3 Serial Port 2
103 4 Serial Port 1
104 5 Parallel Port 2
105 6 Floppy Diskette Controller
106 7 Parallel Port 1
107 8 Real-time Clock
108 9 Redirected to IRQ2
109 10 --
110 11 --
111 12 --
112 13 Math Coprocessor
113 14 Hard Disk Controller
114 15 --
115 Note that the meanings of the IRQ channels for parallel ports,
117 serial ports and those left empty may have been changed depend‐
118 ing on your hardware setup. If that's the case on your machine,
119 you're probably aware of it. If you're not, upgrade to at least
120 Linux 1.1.43 and let procinfo enlighten you about who uses what.
121 Modules:
123 The modules (loadable device drivers) installed on your machine,
124 with their sizes in kilobytes. (Only with -m or -a option). Mod‐
125 ules with a use count larger than 0 are marked with an asterisk.
126 Character and Block Devices:
129 All available devices with their major numbers. (Only with -m or
130 -a option).
131 File Systems:
133 All available file systems. (Only with -m or -a option). Those
134 that do not require an actual device (like procfs itself) are
135 noted between square brackets.
136
138 -f Run procinfo continuously full-screen.
139 -nN Pause N second between updates. This option implies -f. It may
141 contain a decimal point. The default is 5 seconds. When run by
142 root with a pause of 0 seconds, the program will run at the
143 highest possible priority level.
144 -m Show info about modules and device drivers instead of CPU and
146 memory stats.
147 -a Show all information that procinfo knows how to find.
149 -d For memory, CPU times, paging, swapping, disk, context and
151 interrupt stats, display values per second rather than totals.
152 This option implies -f.
153 -D Same as -d, except that memory stats are displayed as totals.
155 -S When running with -d or -D, always show values per second, even
157 when running with -n N with N greater than one second.
158 -Ffile Redirect output to file (usually a tty). Nice if, for example,
160 you want to run procinfo permanently on a virtual console or on
161 a terminal, by starting it from init(8) with a line like:
162 p8:23:respawn:/usr/bin/procinfo -biDn1 -F/dev/tty8
164 -b If your kernel is recent enough to display separate read and
167 write numbers for disk I/O, the -b flag makes procinfo display
168 numbers of blocks rather that numbers of I/O requests (neither
169 of which is, alas, reliably translatable into kilobytes).
170 -i Normally the IRQ portion of the display is squeezed to only dis‐
172 play non-zero IRQ channels. With this option you'll get the full
173 list, but on Alphas and on Intel boxen with 2.1.104 kernels or
174 later procinfo won't fit inside a 80x24 screen anymore. Price of
175 progress, I suppose.
176 -r This option adds an extra line to the memory info showing 'real'
178 free memory, just as free(1) does.
179 -h Print a brief help message.
181 -v Print version info.
183
185 When running procinfo fullscreen, you can change its behaviour by
186 pressing n, d, D, S, i, m, a, r and b, which have the same effect as
187 the corresponding command line options. In addition you can press q
188 which quits the program; s which switches back to the main screen after
189 pressing m or a; t which switches back to displaying totals after
190 pressing d or D; <space> which freezes the screen untill you press
191 another key again; C and R which sets and releases a checkpoint in
192 totals mode; and finally Ctrl-L which refreshes the screen.
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195 /proc The proc file system.
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198 What, me worry?
199
201 free(1), uptime(1), w(1), init(8), proc(5).
202
204 Sander van Malssen <svm@kozmix.cistron.nl>
20518th Release 2001-03-02 PROCINFO(8)