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IOSTAT(1) Linux User's Manual IOSTAT(1)

NAME

iostat - Report Central Processing Unit (CPU) statistics and input/output statistics for devices, partitions and network filesystems (NFS).

SYNOPSIS

iostat [ -c ] [ -d ] [ -N ] [ -n ] [ -h ] [ -k | -m ] [ -t ] [ -V ] [ -x ] [ -y ] [ -z ] [ -j { ID | LABEL | PATH | UUID | ... } [ device [...] | ALL ] ] [ device [...] | ALL ] [ -p [ device [,...] | ALL ] ] [ interval [ count ] ]

DESCRIPTION

The iostat command is used for monitoring system input/output device loading by observing the time the devices are active in relation to their average transfer rates. The iostat command generates reports that can be used to change system configuration to better balance the input/output load between physical disks.

The first report generated by the iostat command provides statistics concerning the time since the system was booted, unless the -y option is used, when this first report is omitted. Each subsequent report covers the time since the previous report. All statistics are reported each time the iostat command is run. The report consists of a CPU header row followed by a row of CPU statistics. On multiprocessor systems, CPU statistics are calculated system-wide as averages among all processors. A device header row is displayed followed by a line of statistics for each device that is configured. When option -n is used, an NFS header row is displayed followed by a line of statistics for each network filesystem that is mounted.

The interval parameter specifies the amount of time in seconds between each report. The first report contains statistics for the time since system startup (boot), unless the -y option is used, when this report is omitted. Each subsequent report contains statistics collected during the interval since the previous report. The count parameter can be specified in conjunction with the interval parameter. If the count parameter is specified, the value of count determines the number of reports generated at interval seconds apart. If the interval parameter is specified without the count parameter, the iostat command generates reports continuously.

REPORTS

The iostat command generates three types of reports, the CPU Utilization report, the Device Utilization report and the Network Filesystem report.

The first report generated by the iostat command is the CPU Utilization Report. For multiprocessor systems, the CPU values are global averages among all processors. The report has the following format:

%user

Show the percentage of CPU utilization that occurred while executing at the user level (application).

%nice

Show the percentage of CPU utilization that occurred while executing at the user level with nice priority.

%system

Show the percentage of CPU utilization that occurred while executing at the system level (kernel).

%iowait

Show the percentage of time that the CPU or CPUs were idle during which the system had an outstanding disk I/O request.

%steal

Show the percentage of time spent in involuntary wait by the virtual CPU or CPUs while the hypervisor was servicing another virtual processor.

%idle

Show the percentage of time that the CPU or CPUs were idle and the system did not have an outstanding disk I/O request.
The second report generated by the iostat command is the Device Utilization Report. The device report provides statistics on a per physical device or partition basis. Block devices for which statistics are to be displayed may be entered on the command line. Partitions may also be entered on the command line providing that option -x is not used. If no device nor partition is entered, then statistics are displayed for every device used by the system, and providing that the kernel maintains statistics for it. If the ALL keyword is given on the command line, then statistics are displayed for every device defined by the system, including those that have never been used. The report may show the following fields, depending on the flags used:

Device:

This column gives the device (or partition) name, which is displayed as hdiskn with 2.2 kernels, for the nth device. It is displayed as devm-n with 2.4 kernels, where m is the major number of the device, and n a distinctive number. With newer kernels, the device name as listed in the /dev directory is displayed.

tps
Indicate the number of transfers per second that were issued to the device. A transfer is an I/O request to the device. Multiple logical requests can be combined into a single I/O request to the device. A transfer is of indeterminate size.

Blk_read/s
Indicate the amount of data read from the device expressed in a number of blocks per second. Blocks are equivalent to sectors with kernels 2.4 and later and therefore have a size of 512 bytes. With older kernels, a block is of indeterminate size.

Blk_wrtn/s
Indicate the amount of data written to the device expressed in a number of blocks per second.

Blk_read
The total number of blocks read.

Blk_wrtn
The total number of blocks written.

kB_read/s
Indicate the amount of data read from the device expressed in kilobytes per second.

kB_wrtn/s
Indicate the amount of data written to the device expressed in kilobytes per second.

kB_read
The total number of kilobytes read.

kB_wrtn
The total number of kilobytes written.

MB_read/s
Indicate the amount of data read from the device expressed in megabytes per second.

MB_wrtn/s
Indicate the amount of data written to the device expressed in megabytes per second.

MB_read
The total number of megabytes read.

MB_wrtn
The total number of megabytes written.

rrqm/s
The number of read requests merged per second that were queued to the device.

wrqm/s
The number of write requests merged per second that were queued to the device.

r/s
The number of read requests that were issued to the device per second.

w/s
The number of write requests that were issued to the device per second.

rsec/s
The number of sectors read from the device per second.

wsec/s
The number of sectors written to the device per second.

rkB/s
The number of kilobytes read from the device per second.

wkB/s
The number of kilobytes written to the device per second.

rMB/s
The number of megabytes read from the device per second.

wMB/s
The number of megabytes written to the device per second.

avgrq-sz
The average size (in sectors) of the requests that were issued to the device.

avgqu-sz
The average queue length of the requests that were issued to the device.

await
The average time (in milliseconds) for I/O requests issued to the device to be served. This includes the time spent by the requests in queue and the time spent servicing them.

svctm
The average service time (in milliseconds) for I/O requests that were issued to the device. Warning! Do not trust this field any more. This field will be removed in a future sysstat version.

%util
Percentage of elapsed time during which I/O requests were issued to the device (bandwidth utilization for the device). Device saturation occurs when this value is close to 100%.
The Network Filesystem (NFS) report provides statistics for each mounted network filesystem. The report shows the following fields:

Filesystem:

This columns shows the hostname of the NFS server followed by a colon and by the directory name where the network filesystem is mounted.

rBlk_nor/s
Indicate the number of blocks read by applications via the read(2) system call interface. A block has a size of 512 bytes.

wBlk_nor/s
Indicate the number of blocks written by applications via the write(2) system call interface.

rBlk_dir/s
Indicate the number of blocks read from files opened with the O_DIRECT flag.

wBlk_dir/s
Indicate the number of blocks written to files opened with the O_DIRECT flag.

rBlk_svr/s
Indicate the number of blocks read from the server by the NFS client via an NFS READ request.

wBlk_svr/s
Indicate the number of blocks written to the server by the NFS client via an NFS WRITE request.

rkB_nor/s
Indicate the number of kilobytes read by applications via the read(2) system call interface.

wkB_nor/s
Indicate the number of kilobytes written by applications via the write(2) system call interface.

rkB_dir/s
Indicate the number of kilobytes read from files opened with the O_DIRECT flag.

wkB_dir/s
Indicate the number of kilobytes written to files opened with the O_DIRECT flag.

rkB_svr/s
Indicate the number of kilobytes read from the server by the NFS client via an NFS READ request.

wkB_svr/s
Indicate the number of kilobytes written to the server by the NFS client via an NFS WRITE request.

rMB_nor/s
Indicate the number of megabytes read by applications via the read(2) system call interface.

wMB_nor/s
Indicate the number of megabytes written by applications via the write(2) system call interface.

rMB_dir/s
Indicate the number of megabytes read from files opened with the O_DIRECT flag.

wMB_dir/s
Indicate the number of megabytes written to files opened with the O_DIRECT flag.

rMB_svr/s
Indicate the number of megabytes read from the server by the NFS client via an NFS READ request.

wMB_svr/s
Indicate the number of megabytes written to the server by the NFS client via an NFS WRITE request.

ops/s
Indicate the number of operations that were issued to the filesystem per second.

rops/s
Indicate the number of 'read' operations that were issued to the filesystem per second.

wops/s
Indicate the number of 'write' operations that were issued to the filesystem per second.

OPTIONS

Display the CPU utilization report.
Display the device utilization report.
Make the NFS report displayed by option -n easier to read by a human.
Display persistent device names. Options ID, LABEL, etc. specify the type of the persistent name. These options are not limited, only prerequisite is that directory with required persistent names is present in /dev/disk. Optionally, multiple devices can be specified in the chosen persistent name type.
Display statistics in kilobytes per second instead of blocks per second. Data displayed are valid only with kernels 2.4 and later.
Display statistics in megabytes per second instead of blocks or kilobytes per second. Data displayed are valid only with kernels 2.4 and later.
Display the registered device mapper names for any device mapper devices. Useful for viewing LVM2 statistics.
Display the network filesystem (NFS) report. This option works only with kernel 2.6.17 and later.
The -p option displays statistics for block devices and all their partitions that are used by the system. If a device name is entered on the command line, then statistics for it and all its partitions are displayed. Last, the ALL keyword indicates that statistics have to be displayed for all the block devices and partitions defined by the system, including those that have never been used. If option -j is defined before this option, devices entered on the command line can be specified with the chosen persistent name type. Note that this option works only with post 2.5 kernels.
Print the time for each report displayed. The timestamp format may depend on the value of the S_TIME_FORMAT environment variable (see below).
Print version number then exit.
Display extended statistics. This option works with post 2.5 kernels since it needs /proc/diskstats file or a mounted sysfs to get the statistics. This option may also work with older kernels (e.g. 2.4) only if extended statistics are available in /proc/partitions (the kernel needs to be patched for that).
Omit first report with statistics since the system boot, if displaying multiple records in given interval.
Tell iostat to omit output for any devices for which there was no activity during the sample period.

ENVIRONMENT

The iostat command takes into account the following environment variable:

If this variable exists and its value is ISO then the current locale will be ignored when printing the date in the report header. The iostat command will use the ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD) instead. The timestamp displayed with option -t will also be compliant with ISO 8601 format.

EXAMPLES

iostat

Display a single history since boot report for all CPU and Devices.

iostat -d 2
Display a continuous device report at two second intervals.

iostat -d 2 6
Display six reports at two second intervals for all devices.

iostat -x hda hdb 2 6
Display six reports of extended statistics at two second intervals for devices hda and hdb.

iostat -p sda 2 6
Display six reports at two second intervals for device sda and all its partitions (sda1, etc.)

BUGS

/proc filesystem must be mounted for iostat to work.

Extended statistics are available only with post 2.5 kernels.

The average service time (svctm field) value is meaningless, as I/O statistics are calculated at block level, and we don't know when the disk driver starts to process a request. For this reason, this field will be removed in a future sysstat version.

FILES

/proc/stat contains system statistics.

/proc/uptime contains system uptime.

/proc/partitions contains disk statistics (for pre 2.5 kernels that have been patched).

/proc/diskstats contains disks statistics (for post 2.5 kernels).

/sys contains statistics for block devices (post 2.5 kernels).

/proc/self/mountstats contains statistics for network filesystems.

/dev/disk contains persistent device names.

AUTHOR

Sebastien Godard (sysstat <at> orange.fr)

SEE ALSO

sar(1), pidstat(1), mpstat(1), vmstat(8)

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/sebastien.godard/

APRIL 2009 Linux