sar(1) DG/UX 4.30 sar(1)
NAME
sar - system activity reporter
SYNOPSIS
sar [-ubdycwaqvmprA] [-o file] t [n]
sar [-ubdycwaqvmprA] [-s time] [-e time] [-i sec] [-f file]
DESCRIPTION
The first case of sar samples cumulative activity counters
in the operating system at n intervals of t seconds. If you
specify the -o option, sar writes complete samples to file
(in binary format) in addition to displaying them on the
screen. The default value for n is 1.
In the second instance, with no sampling interval specified,
sar extracts data from a previously recorded file, either
the one specified by the -f option or, by default, the
standard system activity daily data file /usr/adm/sa/sadd
for the current day dd.
The starting and ending times of the report can be bounded
via the -s and -e time arguments of the form hh[:mm[:ss]].
The -i option selects records at sec second intervals.
Otherwise, all intervals found in the data file are
reported.
In either case, subsets of data to be printed are specified
by the following options. Column headings that end in "/s"
indicate an average rate per second over the interval (see
NOTES, below). The default reporting option is -u if no
others are specified.
-a Report use of file access system routines:
iget/s number of inode entry searches per
second (local files only);
namei/s number of pathname searches per
second;
dirblk/s number of reads per second
associated with buffering a portion
of a directory file (local files
only).
-b Report buffer activity:
bread/s, bwrit/s average transfers per second of
data between system buffers and
disk or other block devices;
lread/s, lwrit/s average accesses per second of
system buffers;
%rcache read cache hit ratio, i.e., the
fraction of the number of logical
reads which were found in the
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buffer cache (100% minus the ratio
of bread/s to lread/s). This
number is skewed due to the read-
aheads performed by the operating
system, which are counted in the
bread value;
%wcache write cache hit ratio, i.e., the
fraction of the number of logical
writes which were found in the
buffer cache (100% minus the ratio
of bwrit/s to lwrit/s);
pread/s, pwrit/s average operations per second via
raw (physical) device mechanism.
-c Report system calls:
scall/s system calls per second of all
types;
sread/s, swrit/s, fork/s, exec/s
specific system calls per second;
rchar/s, wchar/s characters transferred per second
by read and write system calls.
-d Report activity for each disk drive. When data is
displayed, the device specification (e.g.,
sd(insc@E(FFF8A000),0,0)) represents a physical disk
drive.
%busy portion of time device was busy
servicing a transfer request;
avque average number of requests
outstanding and being serviced
during that time (measured only
when the disk is busy);
r+w/s, blks/s number of data transfers per second
from or to devices, and number of
512-byte blocks transferred per
second;
avwait average time in milliseconds that a
transfer request waits idly on the
queue;
avserv average time in milliseconds for a
transfer request to be completed
(which for disks includes seek
rotational latency and data
transfer times).
-m Report message and semaphore activities:
msg/s, sema/s msgsnd(2) and semop(2) system calls
issued per second.
-p Report paging activities:
vflt/s address translation page faults per
second (valid page not in memory);
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pflt/s page faults per second from
protection errors (illegal access
to page) or "copy-on-writes";
pgfil/s page faults per second satisfied by
reading pages from program files;
rclm/s valid pages reclaimed per second
for the free list.
-q Report average queue length while occupied, and
percentage of time occupied:
runq-sz number of bound and runnable
processes;
swpq-sz number of unbound runnable
processes (the smaller this number,
the better);
%runocc, %swpocc instantaneous snapshots of whether
the queue is occupied or not, 0%
indicates not occupied, 100%
indicates occupied.
-r Report unused memory pages and disk blocks:
freemem the number of pages available to
user processes (see
getpagesize(2));
freeswp the number of 512-byte disk blocks
available in the paging area.
-u Report CPU usage.
%usr, %sys, %idle portion of CPU time running in user
mode, running in system mode, and
otherwise idle.
-v Report status of text, process, inode and file tables:
proc-sz, inod-sz, file-sz, lock-sz
the number of entries
used/allocated for the process
table, the inode table, the file
table, and the shared memory record
table, evaluated once at the
sampling point. Entries in the
inode table, file table, and shared
memory record table are allocated
dynamically, so the number of
entries in use is the same as the
number of entries allocated;
ov overflows occurring between
sampling points.
-w Report swapping and switching activity:
swpin/s the number of processes bound per
second;
bswin/s the number of page faults per
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second associated with user address
space;
swpot/s the number of processes unbound per
second;
bswot/s the number of pages that belonged
to bound processes reclaimed per
second;
pswch/s process switches per second.
-y Report TTY device activity:
rawch/s, canch/s, outch/s
raw mode input character rate,
input character rate processed by
canon (see termio(7) and tty(7)),
and output character rate;
rcvin/s, xmtin/s, mdmin/s
receive, transmit and modem
interrupt rates.
-A Report all data. This supersedes all other options and
is equivalent to -udqbwcayvmpr.
Restart entries, indicated by
dgux restarts
in the output, mark times when the system was rebooted (or
the run level changed) and system activity counters reset to
zero.
EXAMPLES
$ sar
dgux sys23 4.30 14.5 AViiON 06/08/90
00:00:05 %usr %sys %idle
01:00:04 3 2 95
02:00:04 3 2 94
03:00:04 3 2 96
04:00:04 3 2 96
05:00:03 3 2 96
06:00:04 3 2 96
07:00:04 3 2 96
Average 3 2 95
$
The system activity reporter, sar, will display cumulative
activity statistics. In the above example, sar reports CPU
usage from the standard system activity daily file for the
current day.
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$ sar -c
dgux sys23 4.30 14.5 AViiON 06/08/90
00:00:05 scall/s sread/s swrit/s fork/s exec/s rchar/s wchar/s
01:00:04 4 0 0 0.1 0.0 0 0
02:00:04 4 0 0 0.0 0.0 0 0
03:00:04 3 0 0 0.1 0.0 0 0
04:00:04 3 0 0 0.1 0.0 0 0
05:00:03 3 0 0 0.1 0.0 0 0
06:00:04 3 0 0 0.1 0.0 0 0
07:00:04 3 0 0 0.1 0.0 0 0
Average 3 0 0 0.1 0.0 0 0
$
In this example, sar reports system call usage from the
standard system activity daily file for the current day.
$ sar -q
dgux sys23 4.30 14.5 AViiON 06/08/90
00:00:05 runq-sz %runocc swpq-sz %swpocc
01:00:04 1.0 100 1.0 100
02:00:04 1.0 100 1.0 100
03:00:04 1.0 100 1.0 100
04:00:04 1.0 100 1.0 100
05:00:03 1.0 100 1.0 100
06:00:04 1.0 100 1.0 100
07:00:04 1.0 100 1.0 100
Average 1.0 100 1.0 100
$
In this example, sar reports average queue length while
occupied, and whether the queue is occupied or not at the
time of the sample.
$ sar -v
dgux sys23 4.30 14.5 AViiON 06/08/90
00:00:05 proc-sz ov inod-sz ov file-sz ov lock-sz
01:00:04 69/256 0 240/240 0 102/102 0 0/ 0
02:00:04 69/256 0 240/240 0 102/102 0 0/ 0
03:00:04 69/256 0 242/242 0 102/102 0 0/ 0
04:00:04 69/256 0 240/240 0 102/102 0 0/ 0
05:00:03 69/256 0 240/240 0 102/102 0 0/ 0
06:00:04 69/256 0 240/240 0 102/102 0 0/ 0
07:00:04 69/256 0 240/240 0 102/102 0 0/ 0
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$
In this example, sar reports on the process, inode, file,
and shared memory lock tables: the size of each table and
overflows occuring between sampling points.
To watch CPU activity evolve for 10 minutes, simultaneously
saving data to a file named temp:
sar -o temp 60 10
To review disk activity recorded in file temp:
sar -d -f temp
FILES
/usr/adm/sa/sadd daily data file, where dd are digits
representing the day of the month.
/usr/lib/sa/sadc data collection program.
NOTES
A sampling interval of less than 5 seconds is discouraged,
for then the activity of sar itself may affect the sample.
Using sar with no sampling interval, causing it to read from
a named file or the default daily file, presumes that
something has been done to collect data in that file.
Otherwise, only the restart entries will be displayed.
By reporting rates per second, sar smooths bursts of extreme
activity and inactivity. For example, if a burst of 20
characters of output occurs within a one-second sample on an
otherwise idle machine, sar will report an output character
rate of 20 characters per second. If that same activity
occurred within a ten-second sample, sar would report a rate
of 2 characters per second.
BUGS
If more than one reporting option is specified, the headers
are printed all together and the output may be difficult to
read.
sar cannot be used to report from data files collected on
systems that are not running DG/UX . The versions of sar
and sadc released prior to DG/UX 4.30 are incompatible with
later releases.
SEE ALSO
sar(1M) in the System Manager's Reference for the DG/UX
System.
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