1PMSTAT(1) General Commands Manual PMSTAT(1)
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6 pcp-vmstat, pmstat - high-level system performance overview
7
9 pcp [pcp options] vmstat [interval [samples]]
10 pmstat [-gLlPVxz?] [-a archive] [-A align] [-h host] [-H file] [-n
12 pmnsfile] [-O offset] [-p port] [-s samples] [-S starttime] [-t inter‐
13 val] [-T endtime] [-Z timezone]
14 pcp-vmstat ...
16
18 pmstat provides a one line summary of system performance every interval
19 unit of time (the default is 5 seconds). pmstat is intended to monitor
20 system performance at the highest level, after which other tools may be
21 used to examine subsystems in which potential performance problems may
22 be observed in greater detail.
23 pcp-vmstat is a simple wrapper for use with the pcp(1) command, provid‐
25 ing a more familiar command line format for some users. It also en‐
26 ables the extended reporting option by default, see the -x option be‐
27 low.
28 Multiple hosts may be monitored by supplying more than one host with
30 multiple -h flags (for live monitoring) or by providing a name of the
31 hostlist file, where each line contain one host name, with -H, or mul‐
32 tiple -a flags (for retrospective monitoring from sets of archives).
33 By default, pmstat fetches metrics by connecting to the Performance
35 Metrics Collector Daemon (PMCD) on the local host. If the -L option is
36 specified, then pmcd(1) is bypassed, and metrics are fetched from PMDAs
37 on the local host using the standalone PM_CONTEXT_LOCAL variant of pm‐
38 NewContext(3). When the -h option is specified, pmstat connects to the
39 pmcd(1) on host and fetches metrics from there. As mentioned above,
40 multiple hosts may be monitored by supplying multiple -h flags.
41 Alternatively, if the -a option is used, the metrics are retrieved from
43 the Performance Co-Pilot archive files identified by archive, which is
44 a comma-separated list of names, each of which may be the base name of
45 an archive or the name of a directory containing one or more archives.
46 Multiple sets of archives may be replayed by supplying multiple -a
47 flags. When the -a flag is used, the -P flag may also be used to pause
48 the output after each interval.
49 Standalone mode can only connect to the local host, using a set of ar‐
51 chives implies a host name, and nominating a host precludes using an
52 archive, so the options -L, -a and -h are mutually exclusive.
53 pmstat may relinquish its own timing control, and operate under the
55 control of a pmtime(1) process that uses a GUI dialog to provide timing
56 control. In this case, either the -g option should be used to start
57 pmstat as the sole client of a new pmtime(1) instance, or -p should be
58 used to attach pmstat to an existing pmtime(1) instance via the IPC
59 channel identified by the port argument.
60 The -S, -T, -O and -A options may be used to define a time window to
62 restrict the samples retrieved, set an initial origin within the time
63 window, or specify a ``natural'' alignment of the sample times; refer
64 to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of these options.
65
67 The available command line options are:
68 -a archive, --archive=archive
70 Performance metric values are retrieved from the set of Perfor‐
71 mance Co-Pilot (PCP) archive files identified by the archive argu‐
72 ment, which is a comma-separated list of names, each of which may
73 be the base name of an archive or the name of a directory contain‐
74 ing one or more archives.
75 -A align, --align=align
77 Force the initial sample to be aligned on the boundary of a natu‐
78 ral time unit align. Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete descrip‐
79 tion of the syntax for align.
80 -g, --guimode
82 Start pmstat as the client of a new pmtime(1) server process for
83 replay of archived performance data using the pmtime(1) graphical
84 user interface.
85 -h host, --host=host
87 Fetch performance metrics from pmcd(1) on host, rather than from
88 the default localhost.
89 -H path, --hostsfile=path
91 Specify the path to a file containing a set of hostnames where
92 pmcd(1) is running , rather than using the default localhost.
93 -K spec, --spec-local=spec
95 When fetching metrics from a local context (see -L), the -K option
96 may be used to control the DSO PMDAs that should be made accessi‐
97 ble. The spec argument conforms to the syntax described in pm‐
98 SpecLocalPMDA(3). More than one -K option may be used.
99 -l, --suffix
101 Prints the last 7 characters of a hostname in summaries involving
102 more than one host (when more than one -h option has been speci‐
103 fied on the command line).
104 -L, --local-PMDA
106 Use a local context to collect metrics from DSO PMDAs on the local
107 host without PMCD. See also -K.
108 -n pmnsfile, --namespace=pmnsfile
110 Load an alternative Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS(5)) from
111 the file pmnsfile.
112 -O origin, --origin=origin
114 When reporting archived metrics, start reporting at origin within
115 the time window (see -S and -T). Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a com‐
116 plete description of the syntax for origin.
117 -p port, --guiport=port
119 Attach pmstat to an existing pmtime(1) time control process in‐
120 stance via the IPC channel identified by the port argument. This
121 option is normally only used by other tools, e.g. pmchart(1),
122 when they launch pmstat with synchronized time control.
123 -P, --pause
125 Pause between updates for archive replay.
126 -s samples, --samples=samples
128 The samples option defines the number of samples to be retrieved
129 and reported. If samples is 0 or -s is not specified, pmstat will
130 sample and report continuously - this is the default behavior.
131 -S starttime, --start=starttime
133 When reporting archived metrics, the report will be restricted to
134 those records logged at or after starttime. Refer to PCPIntro(1)
135 for a complete description of the syntax for starttime.
136 -t interval, --interval=interval
138 Set the reporting interval to something other than the default 1
139 second. The interval argument follows the syntax described in
140 PCPIntro(1), and in the simplest form may be an unsigned integer
141 (the implied units in this case are seconds).
142 -T endtime, --finish=endtime
144 When reporting archived metrics, the report will be restricted to
145 those records logged before or at endtime.
146 -V, --version
148 Display version number and exit.
149 -x, --xcpu
151 The extended CPU metrics option, causes two additional CPU metrics
152 to be reported, namely wait for I/O ("wa") and virtualisation
153 steal time ("st").
154 -z, --hostzone
156 Change the reporting timezone to the local timezone at the host
157 that is the source of the performance metrics, as identified via
158 either the -h or -a options.
159 -Z timezone, --timezone=timezone
161 By default, pmtime reports the time of day according to the local
162 timezone on the system where pmstat is run. The -Z option changes
163 the timezone to timezone in the format of the environment variable
164 TZ as described in environ(7).
165 -?, --help
167 Display usage message and exit.
168
170 The output from pmstat is directed to standard output, and the columns
171 in the report are interpreted as follows:
172 loadavg The 1 minute load average.
174 memory The swpd column indicates average swap space used during the
176 interval, in Kbytes. The free column indicates average free
177 memory during the interval, in Kbytes. The buff column indi‐
178 cates average buffer memory in use during the interval, in
179 Kbytes. The cache column indicates average cached memory in
180 use during the interval, in Kbytes.
181 If the values become large, they are reported as Mbytes (m
183 suffix) or Gbytes (g suffix).
184 swap The metrics in this area of the kernel instrumentation are of
186 varying value. We try to report the average number of pages
187 that are paged in (pi) and out (po) per second during the in‐
188 terval. If the corresponding page swapping metrics are un‐
189 available, we report the average rate per second of swap op‐
190 erations in (si) and out (so) during the interval. It is
191 normal for the ``in'' values to be non-zero, but the system
192 is suffering memory stress if the ``out'' values are non-zero
193 over an extended period.
194 If the values become large, they are reported as thousands of
196 operations per second (K suffix) or millions of operations
197 per second (M suffix).
198 io The bi and bo columns indicate the average rate per second of
200 block input and block output operations (respectfully) during
201 the interval. Unless all file systems have a 1 Kbyte block
202 size, these rates do not directly indicate Kbytes trans‐
203 ferred.
204 If the values become large, they are reported as thousands of
206 operations per second (K suffix) or millions of operations
207 per second (M suffix).
208 system Interrupt rate (in) and context switch rate (cs). Rates are
210 expressed as average operations per second during the inter‐
211 val. Note that the interrupt rate is normally at least HZ
212 (the clock interrupt rate, usually 100) interrupts per sec‐
213 ond.
214 If the values become large, they are reported as thousands of
216 operations per second (K suffix) or millions of operations
217 per second (M suffix).
218 cpu Percentage of CPU time spent executing user and "nice user"
220 code (us), system and interrupt processing code (sy), idle
221 loop (id).
222 If any values for the associated performance metrics are unavailable,
224 the value appears as ``?'' in the output.
225
227 $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
228 default PMNS specification files
229 $PCP_VAR_DIR/config/pmlogger/config.pmstat
231 pmlogger(1) configuration for creating an archive suitable for re‐
232 play with pmstat
233
235 Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the
236 file and directory names used by PCP. On each installation, the file
237 /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for these variables. The
238 $PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration
239 file, as described in pcp.conf(5).
240 For environment variables affecting PCP tools, see pmGetOptions(3).
242
244 PCPIntro(1), pmclient(1), pmtime(1), PMAPI(3), pmNewContext(3),
245 pcp.conf(5), pcp.env(5) and PMNS(5).
246Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMSTAT(1)