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TLDR: iostat (tldr-pages)

Report statistics for devices and partitions.

  • Display a report of CPU and disk statistics since system startup
    iostat
  • Display a report of CPU and disk statistics with units converted to megabytes
    iostat -m
  • Display CPU statistics
    iostat {{-c|--compact}}
  • Display disk statistics with disk names (including LVM)
    iostat -N
  • Display extended disk statistics with disk names for device "sda"
    iostat -xN {{sda}}
  • Display incremental reports of CPU and disk statistics every 2 seconds
    iostat {{2}}
IOSTAT(1)                                Linux User's Manual                               IOSTAT(1)



NAME
       iostat  - Report Central Processing Unit (CPU) statistics and input/output statistics for de‐
       vices and partitions.


SYNOPSIS
       iostat [ -c ] [ -d ] [ -h ] [ -k | -m ] [ -N ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [ -V ] [ -x ] [ -y ] [  -z  ]  [
       --dec={  0  | 1 | 2 } ] [ { -f | +f } directory ] [ -j { ID | LABEL | PATH | UUID | ... } ] [
       -o JSON ] [ [ -H ] -g group_name ] [ --human ] [ --pretty ] [ -p [ device[,...] | ALL ]  ]  [
       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 in‐
       put/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 (in this case, 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.

       The interval parameter specifies the amount of time in seconds between each 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  sec‐
       onds  apart.  If  the interval parameter is specified without the count parameter, the iostat
       command generates reports continuously.


REPORTS
       The iostat command generates two types of reports, the CPU Utilization report and the  Device
       Utilization report.


       CPU Utilization 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.

       Device Utilization Report
              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  and partitions for which statistics are to be displayed may be entered
              on the command line.  If no device nor partition is entered, then statistics are  dis‐
              played  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.  Transfer rates are shown in 1K blocks by default, unless  the  environment
              variable  POSIXLY_CORRECT  is set, in which case 512-byte blocks are used.  The report
              may show the following fields, depending on the flags used (e.g.  -x,  -s  and  -k  or
              -m):

              Device:
                     This  column  gives the device (or partition) name as listed in the /dev direc‐
                     tory.

              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 com‐
                     bined into a single I/O request to the device. A transfer is  of  indeterminate
                     size.

              Blk_read/s (kB_read/s, MB_read/s)
                     Indicate  the  amount  of  data  read  from the device expressed in a number of
                     blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) per second. Blocks are equivalent to sectors  and
                     therefore have a size of 512 bytes.

              Blk_wrtn/s (kB_wrtn/s, MB_wrtn/s)
                     Indicate  the  amount  of  data  written to the device expressed in a number of
                     blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) per second.

              Blk_dscd/s (kB_dscd/s, MB_dscd/s)
                     Indicate the amount of data discarded for the device expressed in a  number  of
                     blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) per second.

              Blk_w+d/s (kB_w+d/s, MB_w+d/s)
                     Indicate the amount of data written to or discarded for the device expressed in
                     a number of blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) per second.

              Blk_read (kB_read, MB_read)
                     The total number of blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) read.

              Blk_wrtn (kB_wrtn, MB_wrtn)
                     The total number of blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) written.

              Blk_dscd (kB_dscd, MB_dscd)
                     The total number of blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) discarded.

              Blk_w+d (kB_w+d, MB_w+d)
                     The total number of blocks (kilobytes, megabytes) written or discarded.

              r/s    The number (after merges) of read requests completed per second for the device.

              w/s    The number (after merges) of write requests completed per second  for  the  de‐
                     vice.

              d/s    The  number (after merges) of discard requests completed per second for the de‐
                     vice.

              f/s    The number (after merges) of flush requests completed per second  for  the  de‐
                     vice.   This  counts  flush  requests executed by disks. Flush requests are not
                     tracked for partitions.  Before being merged, flush operations are  counted  as
                     writes.

              sec/s (kB/s, MB/s)
                     The number of sectors (kilobytes, megabytes) read from, written to or discarded
                     for the device per second.

              rsec/s (rkB/s, rMB/s)
                     The number of sectors (kilobytes, megabytes) read from the device per second.

              wsec/s (wkB/s, wMB/s)
                     The number of sectors (kilobytes, megabytes) written to the device per second.

              dsec/s (dkB/s, dMB/s)
                     The number of sectors (kilobytes, megabytes) discarded for the device per  sec‐
                     ond.

              rqm/s  The number of I/O requests merged per second that were queued to the device.

              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.

              drqm/s The  number  of  discard requests merged per second that were queued to the de‐
                     vice.

              %rrqm  The percentage of read requests merged together before being sent  to  the  de‐
                     vice.

              %wrqm  The  percentage  of write requests merged together before being sent to the de‐
                     vice.

              %drqm  The percentage of discard requests merged together before being sent to the de‐
                     vice.

              areq-sz
                     The average size (in kilobytes) of the I/O requests that were issued to the de‐
                     vice.
                     Note: In previous versions, this field was known as avgrq-sz and was  expressed
                     in sectors.

              rareq-sz
                     The  average  size  (in kilobytes) of the read requests that were issued to the
                     device.

              wareq-sz
                     The average size (in kilobytes) of the write requests that were issued  to  the
                     device.

              dareq-sz
                     The average size (in kilobytes) of the discard 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.

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

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

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

              f_await
                     The average time (in milliseconds) for flush requests issued to the  device  to
                     be served.  The block layer combines flush requests and executes at most one at
                     a time.  Thus flush operations could be twice as long: Wait for  current  flush
                     request, then execute it, then wait for the next one.

              aqu-sz The average queue length of the requests that were issued to the device.
                     Note: In previous versions, this field was known as avgqu-sz.

              %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% for devices serving requests serially.  But for devices
                     serving requests in parallel, such as RAID arrays and modern SSDs, this  number
                     does not reflect their performance limits.


OPTIONS
       -c     Display the CPU utilization report.

       -d     Display the device utilization report.

       --dec={ 0 | 1 | 2 }
              Specify the number of decimal places to use (0 to 2, default value is 2).

       -f directory
       +f directory
              Specify  an  alternative  directory  for  iostat to read devices statistics. Option -f
              tells iostat to use only the files located in the alternative directory,  whereas  op‐
              tion  +f  tells  it to use both the standard kernel files and the files located in the
              alternative directory to read device statistics.

              directory is a directory containing files  with  statistics  for  devices  managed  in
              userspace.  It may contain:

              - a "diskstats" file whose format is compliant with that located in "/proc",
              -  statistics for individual devices contained in files whose format is compliant with
              that of files located in "/sys".

              In particular, the following files located in directory may be used by iostat:

              directory/block/device/stat
              directory/block/device/partition/stat

              partition files must have an entry in directory/dev/block/ directory, e.g.:

              directory/dev/block/major:minor --> ../../block/device/partition

       -g group_name { device [...] | ALL }
              Display statistics for a group of devices.  The iostat command reports statistics  for
              each individual device in the list then a line of global statistics for the group dis‐
              played as group_name and made up of all the devices in the list. The ALL keyword means
              that all the block devices defined by the system shall be included in the group.

       -H     This  option must be used with option -g and indicates that only global statistics for
              the group are to be displayed, and not statistics for individual devices in the group.

       -h     This option is equivalent to specifying --human --pretty.

       --human
              Print sizes in human readable format (e.g. 1.0k, 1.2M, etc.)  The units displayed with
              this option supersede any other default units (e.g.  kilobytes, sectors...) associated
              with the metrics.

       -j { ID | LABEL | PATH | UUID | ... } [ device [...] | ALL ]
              Display persistent device names. Keywords ID, LABEL, etc. specify the type of the per‐
              sistent name. These keywords 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.  Because persistent device names are
              usually long, option --pretty is implicitly set with this option.

       -k     Display statistics in kilobytes per second.

       -m     Display statistics in megabytes per second.

       -N     Display the registered device mapper names for any device mapper devices.  Useful  for
              viewing LVM2 statistics.

       -o JSON
              Display the statistics in JSON (Javascript Object Notation) format.  JSON output field
              order is undefined, and new fields may be added in the future.

       -p [ { device[,...] | ALL } ]
              Display 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, in‐
              cluding 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.

       --pretty
              Make the Device Utilization Report easier to read by a human.

       -s     Display a short (narrow) version of the report that should fit in 80  characters  wide
              screens.

       -t     Print the time for each report displayed. The timestamp format may depend on the value
              of the S_TIME_FORMAT environment variable (see below).

       -V     Print version number then exit.

       -x     Display extended statistics.

       -y     Omit first report with statistics since system boot, if displaying multiple records at
              given interval.

       -z     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 variables:

       POSIXLY_CORRECT
              When this variable is set, transfer rates are shown in 512-byte blocks instead of  the
              default 1K blocks.

       S_COLORS
              By  default statistics are displayed in color when the output is connected to a termi‐
              nal.  Use this variable to change the settings. Possible values for this variable  are
              never, always or auto (the latter is equivalent to the default settings).
              Please  note that the color (being red, yellow, or some other color) used to display a
              value is not indicative of any kind of issue simply because of the color. It only  in‐
              dicates different ranges of values.

       S_COLORS_SGR
              Specify  the  colors  and other attributes used to display statistics on the terminal.
              Its  value  is   a   colon-separated   list   of   capabilities   that   defaults   to
              H=31;1:I=32;22:M=35;1:N=34;1:Z=34;22.  Supported capabilities are:

              H=     SGR  (Select Graphic Rendition) substring for percentage values greater than or
                     equal to 75%.

              I=     SGR substring for device names.

              M=     SGR substring for percentage values in the range from 50% to 75%.

              N=     SGR substring for non-zero statistics values.

              Z=     SGR substring for zero values.

       S_TIME_FORMAT
              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 com‐
              pliant 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 sda sdb 2 6
              Display six reports of extended statistics at two second intervals for devices sda and
              sdb.

       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.

       Kernels older than 2.6.x are no longer supported.

       Although  iostat  speaks  of  kilobytes  (kB),  megabytes (MB)..., it actually uses kibibytes
       (kiB), mebibytes (MiB)...  A kibibyte is equal to 1024 bytes, and a mebibyte is equal to 1024
       kibibytes.


FILES
       /proc/stat contains system statistics.
       /proc/uptime contains system uptime.
       /proc/diskstats contains disks statistics.
       /sys contains statistics for block devices.
       /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), tapestat(1), nfsiostat(1), cifsiostat(1)

       https://github.com/sysstat/sysstat
       http://pagesperso-orange.fr/sebastien.godard/



Linux                                       OCTOBER 2020                                   IOSTAT(1)
iostat(1)
NAME SYNOPSIS
iostat [ -c ] [ -d ] [ -h ] [ -k | -m ] [ -N ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [ -V ] [ -x ] [ -y ] [ -z ] [ -o JSON ] [ [ -H ] -g group_name ] [ --human ] [ --pretty ] [ -p [ device[,...] | ALL ] ] [
DESCRIPTION REPORTS OPTIONS
-c Display the CPU utilization report. -d Display the device utilization report. --dec={ 0 | 1 | 2 } -f directory -g group_name { device [...] | ALL } -H This option must be used with option -g and indicates that only global statistics for -h This option is equivalent to specifying --human --pretty. --human -j { ID | LABEL | PATH | UUID | ... } [ device [...] | ALL ] -k Display statistics in kilobytes per second. -m Display statistics in megabytes per second. -N Display the registered device mapper names for any device mapper devices. Useful for -o JSON -p [ { device[,...] | ALL } ] --pretty -s Display a short (narrow) version of the report that should fit in 80 characters wide -t Print the time for each report displayed. The timestamp format may depend on the value -V Print version number then exit. -x Display extended statistics. -y Omit first report with statistics since system boot, if displaying multiple records at -z Tell iostat to omit output for any devices for which there was no activity during the
ENVIRONMENT EXAMPLES
iostat -d 2 iostat -d 2 6 iostat -x sda sdb 2 6 iostat -p sda 2 6
BUGS FILES AUTHOR SEE ALSO

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