NAME

sar − system activity reporter

SYNOPSIS

sar [−ubdycwaqvmA] [−o file] t [n]

sar [−ubdycwaqvmA] [−s time] [−e time] [−i sec] [−f file]

DESCRIPTION

In the first form above, sar samples cumulative activity counters in the operating system at n intervals of t seconds.  If the −o option is specified, it saves the samples in file in binary format.  The default value of n is 1.  In the second form, with no sampling interval specified, sar extracts data from a previously recorded file, either the one specified by −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 option:

−u Report CPU utilization (the default); portion of time running in:

%usr user mode

%sys system mode

%wio idle with some process waiting for block I/O

%idle otherwise idle

−b Report buffer activity:

bread/s

bwrit/s Transfers per second of data between system buffers and disk or other block devices;

lread/s

lwrit/s Accesses of system buffers;

%rcache

%wcache cache hit ratios, e.g., 1 − bread/lread;

pread/s

pwrit/s transfers via raw (physical) device mechanism. 

−d Report activity for each block device, e.g., disk or tape drive:

%busy Portion of time device was busy servicing a transfer request;

avque Average number of requests outstanding during that time. 

r+w/s Number of data transfers from or to device;

blks/s Number of bytes transferred in 512-byte units. 

avwait Average time (in milliseconds) that transfer requests wait idly on queue;

avserv average time to be serviced (which for disks includes seek, rotational latency, and data transfer times). 

−y Report TTY device activity:

rawch/s raw input character rate;

canch/s input character rate processed by canon;

outch/s output character rate. 

rcvin/s receive interrupt rate;

xmtin/s transmit interrupt rate;

mdmin/s modem interrupt rate. 

−c Report system calls:

scall/s system calls of all types;

sread/s

swrit/s

fork/s

exec/s specific system calls. 

rchar/s characters transferred by read system calls;

wchar/s characters transferred by write system calls. 

−w Report system swapping and switching activity:

swpin/s

swpot/s

bswin/s

bswot/s Number of transfers and number of 512-byte units transferred for swapins (including initial loading of some programs) and swapouts;

pswch/s process switches. 

−a Report use of file access system routines:

iget/s

namei/s

dirblk/s

−q Report average queue length while occupied, and % of time occupied:

runq-sz

%runocc Run queue of processes in memory and runnable;

swpq-sz

%swpocc Swap queue of processes swapped out but ready to run. 

−v Report status of text, process, inode and file tables:

text-sz

proc-sz

inod-sz

file-sz Entries/size for each table, evaluated once at sampling point;

text-ov

proc-ov

inod-ov

file-ov Overflows occurring between sampling points. 

−m Report message and semaphore activities:

msg/s

sema/s Primitives per second. 

−A Report all data.  Equivalent to −udqbwcayvm. 

EXAMPLES

To see today’s CPU activity so far:

sar

To watch CPU activity evolve for 10 minutes and save data:

sar −o temp 60 10

To later review disk and tape activity from that period:

sar −d −f temp

FILES

/usr/adm/sa/sadd daily data file, where dd is two digits representing the day of the month. 

SEE ALSO

sa1(1M). 

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

sar: SVID2

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 8.05: June 1991