path: root/man/man1/pmstat.1

'\"macro stdmacro
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.TH PMSTAT 1 "PCP" "Performance Co-Pilot"
.SH NAME
\f3pmstat\f1 \- high-level system performance overview
.\" literals use .B or \f3
.\" arguments use .I or \f2
.SH SYNOPSIS
\f3pmstat\f1
[\f3\-gLlPxz\f1]
[\f3\-A\f1 \f2align\f1]
[\f3\-a\f1 \f2archive\f1]
[\f3\-h\f1 \f2host\f1]
[\f3\-H\f1 \f2file\f1]
[\f3\-n\f1 \f2pmnsfile\f1]
[\f3\-O\f1 \f2offset\f1]
[\f3\-p\f1 \f2port\f1]
[\f3\-S\f1 \f2starttime\f1]
[\f3\-s\f1 \f2samples\f1]
[\f3\-T\f1 \f2endtime\f1]
[\f3\-t\f1 \f2interval\f1]
[\f3\-Z\f1 \f2timezone\f1]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pmstat
provides a one line summary of system performance every
.I interval
unit of time (the default is 5 seconds).
.B pmstat
is intended to monitor system performance at the highest level,
after which other tools may be used to examine subsystems in which
potential performance problems may be observed in greater detail.
.P
Multiple hosts may be monitored by supplying more than
one host with multiple
.B \-h
flags (for live monitoring) or by providing a name of the hostlist file, where
each line contain one host name, with
.B \-H,
or multiple
.B \-a
flags (for retrospective monitoring from an archive).
.P
The
.B \-t
option may be used to change the default reporting
.IR interval .
The
.I interval
argument follows the syntax described in
.BR PCPIntro (1),
and in the simplest form may be an unsigned integer (the implied
units in this case are seconds).
.PP
By default,
.B pmstat
fetches metrics by connecting to the Performance Metrics Collector
Daemon (PMCD) on the local host.  If the
.B \-L
option is specified, then
.BR pmcd (1)
is bypassed, and metrics are fetched from PMDAs on the local host
using the standalone
.B PM_CONTEXT_LOCAL
variant of
.BR pmNewContext (3).
When the
.B \-h
option is specified,
.B pmstat
connects to the
.BR pmcd (1)
on
.I host
and fetches metrics from there.
As mentioned above, multiple hosts may be monitored
by supplying multiple
.B \-h
flags.
.PP
Alternatively, if the
.B \-a
option is used, the metrics are retrieved from the Performance Co-Pilot
archive log files identified by the base name
.IR archive .
Multiple archives may be replayed by supplying multiple
.B \-a
flags.
When the
.B \-a
flag is used,
the
.B \-P
flag may also be used to pause the output after each interval.
.PP
Standalone mode can only connect to the local host, using an archive implies
a host name, and nominating a host precludes using an archive, so the options
.BR \-L ,
.B \-a 
and
.B \-h
are mutually exclusive.
.PP
Normally
.B pmstat
operates on the default Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS), however
if the
.B \-n
option is specified an alternative namespace is loaded
from the file
.IR pmnsfile .
.PP
If the
.B \-s
the option is specified, 
.I samples
defines the number of samples to be retrieved and reported.
If
.I samples
is 0 or
.B \-s
is not specified, 
.B pmstat
will sample and report continuously \- this is the default behavior.
.PP
When processing an archive,
.B pmstat
may relinquish its own timing control, and operate as a ``slave'' of a
.BR pmtime (1)
process that uses a GUI dialog to provide timing control.
In this case, either the
.B \-g
option should be used to start
.B pmstat
as the sole slave of a new
.BR pmtime (1)
instance, or
.B \-p
should be used to attach
.B pmstat
to an existing
.BR pmtime (1)
instance via the IPC channel identified by the port argument.
.PP
The
.BR \-S ,
.BR \-T ,
.BR \-O
and
.B \-A
options may be used to define a time window to restrict the
samples retrieved, set an initial origin within the time window,
or specify a ``natural'' alignment of the sample times; refer to
.BR PCPIntro (1)
for a complete description of these options.
.PP
The
.B \-l
option prints the last 7 characters of a hostname in summaries involving
more than one host (when more than one
.B \-h
option has been specified on the command line).
.PP
The
.B \-x
option (extended CPU metrics) causes two additional CPU metrics to be
reported, namely wait for I/O ("wa") and virtualisation steal time ("st").
.PP
The output from
.B pmstat
is directed to standard output, and the columns
in the report are interpreted as follows:
.PP
.TP 10
.B loadavg
The 
.I "1 minute"
load average.
.TP
.B memory
The \f3swpd\fP column indicates average swap space used during the interval,
in Kbytes.
The \f3free\fP column indicates average free memory during the interval,
in Kbytes.
The \f3buff\fP column indicates average buffer memory in use during the interval,
in Kbytes.
The \f3cache\fP column indicates average cached memory in use during the interval,
in Kbytes.
.RS
.PP
If the values become large, they are reported as Mbytes
.BR "" ( m " suffix)"
or Gbytes
.BR "" ( g " suffix)."
.RE
.TP
.B swap
The metrics in this area of the kernel instrumentation are of
varying value.  We try to report the average number of \f3pages\fP
that are paged in (\f3pi\fP) and out (\f3po\fP) per second during
the interval.
If the corresponding page swapping metrics are unavailable, we report
the average rate per second
of swap \f3operations\fP in (\f3si\fP) and out (\f3so\fP) during the interval.
It is normal for the ``in'' values to be non-zero, but the system
is suffering memory stress if the ``out'' values are non-zero over
an extended period.
.RS
.PP
If the values become large, they are reported as thousands of
operations per second
.BR "" ( K " suffix)"
or millions of operations per second
.BR "" ( M " suffix)."
.RE
.TP
.B io
The \f3bi\fP and \f3bo\fP columns indicate the average rate per second
of block input and block output operations (respectfully) during the interval.
Unless all file systems have a 1 Kbyte block size, these
rates do not directly indicate Kbytes transferred.
.RS
.PP
If the values become large, they are reported as thousands of
operations per second
.BR "" ( K " suffix)"
or millions of operations per second
.BR "" ( M " suffix)."
.RE
.TP
.B system
Interrupt rate (\f3in\fP) and
context switch rate (\f3cs\fP).
Rates are expressed as average operations per second during the interval.
Note that the interrupt rate is normally at least
.I HZ
(the clock interrupt rate, usually 100)
interrupts per second.
.RS
.PP
If the values become large, they are reported as thousands of
operations per second
.BR "" ( K " suffix)"
or millions of operations per second
.BR "" ( M " suffix)."
.RE
.TP
.B cpu
Percentage of CPU time spent executing user and "nice user" code (\f3us\fP),
system and interrupt processing code (\f3sy\fP), idle loop (\f3id\fP).
.P
If any values for the associated performance metrics are unavailable,
the value appears as ``?'' in the output.
.PP
By default,
.B pmstat
reports the time of day according to the local timezone on the
system where
.B pmstat
is run.
The
.B \-Z
option changes the timezone to
.I timezone
in the format of the environment variable
.B TZ
as described in
.BR environ (5).
The
.B \-z
option changes the timezone to the local timezone at the
host that is the source of the performance metrics, as identified via
either the
.B \-h
or
.B \-a
options.
.SH FILES
.PD 0
.TP 10
.BI $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/ *
default PMNS specification files
.TP
.BI $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/config.pmstat
.BR pmlogger (1)
configuration for creating an archive suitable for replay with
.B pmstat
.PD
.SH "PCP ENVIRONMENT"
Environment variables with the prefix
.B PCP_
are used to parameterize the file and directory names
used by PCP.
On each installation, the file
.I /etc/pcp.conf
contains the local values for these variables.
The
.B $PCP_CONF
variable may be used to specify an alternative
configuration file,
as described in
.BR pcp.conf (5).
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR PCPIntro (1),
.BR pmclient (1),
.BR pmtime (1),
.BR PMAPI (3),
.BR pmNewContext (3),
.BR pcp.conf (5)
and
.BR pcp.env (5).
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
All are generated on standard error, and are intended to be self-explanatory.