This example shows the iostat command printing information about disk usage on my Linux Mint 14 system.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ iostat
Linux 3.5.0-17-generic (adeptus-mechanicus) 19/01/13 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
9.51 0.01 2.01 0.58 0.00 87.89
Device: tps kB_read/s kB_wrtn/s kB_read kB_wrtn
sda 0.04 3.15 0.00 634168 808
sdb 0.03 0.08 0.07 15609 14218
scd0 0.00 0.00 0.00 384 0
sdc 0.02 1.42 0.00 285780 3
sdg 0.15 3.63 0.00 729908 24
sdh 1.73 19.24 40.66 3873113 8182464
sdi 0.01 0.29 0.00 58696 1
The -c parameter prints the CPU usage chart.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ iostat -c
Linux 3.5.0-17-generic (adeptus-mechanicus) 19/01/13 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
9.61 0.01 2.00 0.58 0.00 87.80
And the -d parameter displays the hardware usage chart.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ iostat -d Linux 3.5.0-17-generic (adeptus-mechanicus) 19/01/13 _x86_64_ (4 CPU) Device: tps kB_read/s kB_wrtn/s kB_read kB_wrtn sda 0.04 3.14 0.00 634168 808 sdb 0.03 0.08 0.07 15609 14218 scd0 0.00 0.00 0.00 384 0 sdc 0.02 1.41 0.00 285780 3 sdg 0.15 3.61 0.00 729908 24 sdh 1.73 19.17 40.63 3874805 8215248 sdi 0.01 0.29 0.00 58696 1
Use the -h parameter to display the hardware utilization chart in a human readable format.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ iostat -h
Linux 3.5.0-17-generic (adeptus-mechanicus) 19/01/13 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
9.66 0.01 2.00 0.57 0.00 87.76
Device: tps kB_read/s kB_wrtn/s kB_read kB_wrtn
sda
0.04 3.13 0.00 634168 808
sdb
0.03 0.08 0.07 15609 14218
scd0
0.00 0.00 0.00 384 0
sdc
0.02 1.41 0.00 285780 3
sdg
0.15 3.61 0.00 729908 24
sdh
1.73 19.15 40.61 3874805 8218644
sdi
0.01 0.29 0.00 58696 1
The iostat command is available in the sysstat package for Debian and other distributions. Type sudo apt-get install sysstat to install this useful utility. A related command is vmstat. This will also print out useful system information.
vmstat example.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ vmstat procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 1 0 11840 334480 605220 3473196 0 0 14 20 85 15 10 2 88 1
Use the -d parameter in vmstat to print out disk usage information. Kernel version newer than 2.5.70 required.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ vmstat -d
disk- ------------reads------------ ------------writes----------- -----IO------
total merged sectors ms total merged sectors ms cur sec
ram0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ram15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
loop7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
sda 8714 162501 1268336 44212 120 82 1616 372 0 29
sdb 3138 90 31218 22524 2041 1030 28436 16540 0 5
sr0 130 62 768 9224 0 0 0 0 0 9
sdc 4851 1718 571560 65344 4 3 7 4 0 19
sdd 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
sde 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
sdf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
sdg 29456 258350 1459816 88108 4 2 48 0 0 80
sdh 116902 447188 7749674 2103880 233916 315734 16469736 9003876 0 2749
sdi 1110 1320 117393 10684 3 0 3 1480 0 5
The -p parameter will print out information about a partition. Kernel version newer than 2.5.70 required.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ vmstat -p /dev/sda1
sda1 reads read sectors writes requested writes
6785 1252408 78 992
I am a computer enthusiast that has always been interested in maintaining and upgrading computer hardware. I was born on a farm and lived there for 13 years before moving into town. I was always interested in technology and my father always gave me good encouragement for developing my knowledge and interest in tinkering with computers. He was using a computer on the farm but that was in the very late 80`s and late 90`s. Seeing what a computer could do always fascinated me and then I knew that is what I wanted to do. The first time I used Linux was Red Hat 6.2 installed off a single CDROM and I was amazed that you did not need to install any more drivers on my old Intel Celeron machine to be able to enjoy a nice 24BPP desktop and use the GIMP to edit photos and enjoy playing the old Linux games like Xbill. Then a while later I tried Mandrake Linux 9.2 and I was hooked. It came with so much software and was very easy to use as well. Then Mandrake Linux 10 and on through FreeBSD, Debian 3.0, Debian 3.1 Suse Linux 9.2, Suse 10 and onto the Ubuntu distributions although I am using Fedora Core 15 and the Gnome 3 desktop at the moment.
