Research V7 development
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1.TH IOSTAT 1M
2.SH NAME
3iostat \- report I/O statistics
4.SH SYNOPSIS
5.B iostat
6[ option ] ...
7[ interval [ count ] ]
8.SH DESCRIPTION
9.I Iostat
10delves into the system and reports certain statistics kept about
11input-output activity.
12Information is kept about up to three different disks
13(RF, RK, RP) and about typewriters.
14For each disk, IO completions and number of words transferred
15are counted; for typewriters collectively, the number
16of input and output characters are counted.
17Also, each sixtieth of a second,
18the state of each disk is examined
19and a tally is made if the disk is active.
20The tally goes into
21one of four categories, depending on whether the system is
22executing in user mode, in `nice' (background)
23user mode, in system mode, or idle.
24From all these numbers and from the known transfer rates
25of the devices it is possible to determine
26information such as the degree of IO overlap
27and average seek times for each device.
28.PP
29The optional
30.I interval
31argument causes
32.I iostat
33to report once each
34.I interval
35seconds.
36The first report is for all time since a reboot and each
37subsequent report is for the last interval only.
38.PP
39The optional
40.I count
41argument restricts the number of reports.
42.PP
43With no option argument
44.I iostat
45reports for each disk the number of transfers per minute,
46the milliseconds
47per average seek,
48and the milliseconds per data transfer exclusive of seek time.
49It also gives the percentage of time the system has
50spend in each of the four categories mentioned above.
51.PP
52The following options are available:
53.TP
54.B \-t
55Report the number of characters of terminal IO per second as well.
56.TP
57.B \-i
58Report the percentage of time spend in each
59of the four categories mentioned above,
60the percentage of time each disk was active (seeking or transferring),
61the percentage of time any disk was active,
62and the percentage of time spent in `IO wait:'
63idle, but with a disk active.
64.TP
65.B \-s
66Report the raw timing information: 32 numbers indicating
67the percentage of time spent in each of the possible
68configurations of 4 system states and 8 IO states
69(3 disks each active or not).
70.TP
71.B \-b
72Report on the usage of IO buffers.
73.SH FILES
74/dev/mem, /unix