NAME
pmkstat - high-level system performance overview
SYNOPSIS
pmkstat [-A align] [-a archive] [-d] [-h host] [-L] [-n
pmnsfile] [-O offset] [-S starttime] [-s samples] [-T end
time] [-t interval] [-Z timezone] [-z]
DESCRIPTION
pmkstat provides a one line summary of system performance
every interval unit of time (the default is 5 seconds).
pmkstat 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.
The -t option may be used to change the default reporting
interval. The interval argument follows the syntax
described in PCPIntro(1), and in the simplest form may be
an unsigned integer (the implied units in this case are
seconds).
By default, pmkstat fetches metrics by connecting to the
Performance Metrics Collector Daemon (PMCD) on the local
host. If the -L option is specified, then pmcd(1) is
bypassed and root privileges are required to retrieve the
required metrics directly. In this case, metrics are
fetched from the local host using the standalone PM_CON
TEXT_LOCAL variant of pmNewContext(3). When the -h option
is specified, pmkstat connects to the pmcd(1) on host and
fetches metrics from there.
Alternatively, if the -a option is used, the metrics are
retrieved from the Performance Co-Pilot archive log files
identified by the base name archive.
Standalone mode can only connect to the local host, using
an archive implies a host name, and nominating a host pre
cludes using an archive, so the options -L, -a and -h are
mutually exclusive.
Normally pmkstat operates on the default Performance Met
rics Name Space (PMNS), however if the -n option is speci
fied an alternative namespace is loaded from the file
pmnsfile.
If the -s the option is specified, samples defines the
number of samples to be retrieved and reported. If sam
ples is 0 or -s is not specified, pmkstat will sample and
report continuously - this is the default behavior.
The -S, -T, -O and -A options may be used to define a time
origin within the time window, or specify a ``natural''
alignment of the sample times; refer to PCPIntro(1) for a
complete description of these options.
Also when using archives, the -d option requests that the
prevailing real-time delay be applied between samples (see
-t) to effect a pause, rather than the default behavior of
replaying at full speed.
The output from pmkstat is directed to standard output,
and the columns in the report are interpreted as follows:
runq Average number of runnable processes in main
memory (run) and in swap memory (swp) during the
interval.
memory The free column indicates average free memory
during the interval, in Kbytes. The page column
is the average number of page out operations per
second during the interval. I/Os caused by
these page out operations are included in the
write I/O rate (see disks, below).
system System call rate (scall), context switch rate
(ctxsw) and interrupt rate (intr). Rates are
expressed as average operations per second dur
ing the interval.
disks Aggregated physical read (rd) and write (wr)
rates over all disks, expressed as physical I/Os
issued per second during the interval.
cpu Percentage of CPU time spent executing user code
(usr), system and interrupt code (sys), idle
loop (idl) and idle waiting for resources, typi
cally disk I/O (wt).
The meanings of idl and wt changed in the IRIX
6.5.13 release. For details, see the -U section
of the sar(1) man page.
If any values for the associated performance metrics are
unavailable, the value appears as ``?'' in the output.
By default, pmkstat reports the time of day according to
the local timezone on the system where pmkstat is run.
The -Z option changes the timezone to timezone in the for
mat of the environment variable TZ as described in envi
ron(5). The -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 -h or -a options.
The interrupt (intr) rate includes the high frequency
clock (and possibly some video-related and/or audio-
related interrupts), and differs widely, even on idle sys
tems, depending upon the hardware configuration. A more
useful measure would be the delta above the quiescent
interrupt rate on an idle system, but we have no way of
measuring this.
FILES
$PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
default PMNS specification files
$PCP_VAR_DIR/config/pmlogger/config.pmkstat
pmlogger(1) configuration for creating an
archive suitable for replay with pmkstat
PCP ENVIRONMENT
Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to
parameterize the file and directory names used by PCP. On
each installation, the file /etc/pcp.conf contains the
local values for these variables. The $PCP_CONF variable
may be used to specify an alternative configuration file,
as described in pcp.conf(4).
SEE ALSO
PCPIntro(1), pmchart(1), pmclient(1), PMAPI(3), pmNewCon
text(3), pcp.conf(4) and pcp.env(4).
DIAGNOSTICS
All are generated on standard error, and are intended to
be self-explanatory.
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