pidstat — Report statistics for Linux tasks.
Examples (TL;DR)
-
Show CPU statistics at a 2 second interval for 10 times:
pidstat 2 10 -
Show page faults and memory utilization:
pidstat -r -
Show input/output usage per process id:
pidstat -d -
Show information on a specific PID:
pidstat -p PID -
Show memory statistics for all processes whose command name include "fox" or "bird":
pidstat -C "fox|bird" -r -p ALL
Synopsis
pidstat [ -d ] [ -H ] [ -h ] [ -I ] [ -l ] [ -R ] [ -r ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [ -U [ username ] ] [ -u ] [ -V ] [ -v ] [ -w ] [ -C comm ] [ -G process_name ] [ --dec={ 0 | 1 | 2 } ] [ --human ] [ -p { pid [,...] | SELF | ALL } ] [ -T { TASK | CHILD | ALL } ] [ interval [ count ] ] [ -e program args ]
Description
The pidstat command is used for monitoring individual tasks currently being managed by the Linux kernel. It writes to standard output activities for every task selected with option -p or for every task managed by the Linux kernel if option -p ALL has been used. Not selecting any tasks is equivalent to specifying -p ALL but only active tasks (tasks with non-zero statistics values) will appear in the report.
The pidstat command can also be used for monitoring the child processes of selected tasks. Read about option -T below.
The interval parameter specifies the amount of time in seconds between each report. A value of 0 (or no parameters at all) indicates that tasks statistics are to be reported for the time since system startup (boot). The count parameter can be specified in conjunction with the interval parameter if this one is not set to zero. 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 pidstat command generates reports continuously.
You can select information about specific task activities using flags. Not specifying any flags selects only CPU activity.
Options
- -C comm
Display only tasks whose command name includes the string comm. This string can be a regular expression.
- -d
-
Report I/O statistics (kernels 2.6.20 and later only). The following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task being monitored.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task being monitored.
- PID
The identification number of the task being monitored.
- kB_rd/s
Number of kilobytes the task has caused to be read from disk per second.
- kB_wr/s
Number of kilobytes the task has caused, or shall cause to be written to disk per second.
- kB_ccwr/s
Number of kilobytes whose writing to disk has been cancelled by the task. This may occur when the task truncates some dirty pagecache. In this case, some IO which another task has been accounted for will not be happening.
- iodelay
Block I/O delay of the task being monitored, measured in clock ticks. This metric includes the delays spent waiting for sync block I/O completion and for swapin block I/O completion.
- Command
The command name of the task.
- --dec={ 0 | 1 | 2 }
Specify the number of decimal places to use (0 to 2, default value is 2).
- -e program args
Execute program with given arguments args and monitor it with pidstat. pidstat stops when program terminates.
- -G process_name
Display only processes whose command name includes the string process_name. This string can be a regular expression. If option -t is used together with option -G then the threads belonging to that process are also displayed (even if their command name doesn't include the string process_name).
- -H
Display timestamp in seconds since the epoch.
- -h
Display all activities horizontally on a single line, with no average statistics at the end of the report. This is intended to make it easier to be parsed by other programs.
- --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.
- -I
In an SMP environment, indicate that tasks CPU usage (as displayed by option -u ) should be divided by the total number of processors.
- -l
Display the process command name and all its arguments.
- -p { pid [,...] | SELF | ALL }
Select tasks (processes) for which statistics are to be reported. pid is the process identification number. The SELF keyword indicates that statistics are to be reported for the pidstat process itself, whereas the ALL keyword indicates that statistics are to be reported for all the tasks managed by the system.
- -R
-
Report realtime priority and scheduling policy information. The following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task being monitored.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task being monitored.
- PID
The identification number of the task being monitored.
- prio
The realtime priority of the task being monitored.
- policy
The scheduling policy of the task being monitored.
- Command
The command name of the task.
- -r
-
Report page faults and memory utilization.
When reporting statistics for individual tasks, the following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task being monitored.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task being monitored.
- PID
The identification number of the task being monitored.
- minflt/s
Total number of minor faults the task has made per second, those which have not required loading a memory page from disk.
- majflt/s
Total number of major faults the task has made per second, those which have required loading a memory page from disk.
- VSZ
Virtual Size: The virtual memory usage of entire task in kilobytes.
- RSS
Resident Set Size: The non-swapped physical memory used by the task in kilobytes.
- %MEM
The tasks's currently used share of available physical memory.
- Command
The command name of the task.
When reporting global statistics for tasks and all their children, the following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- PID
The identification number of the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- minflt-nr
Total number of minor faults made by the task and all its children, and collected during the interval of time.
- majflt-nr
Total number of major faults made by the task and all its children, and collected during the interval of time.
- Command
The command name of the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- -s
-
Report stack utilization. The following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task being monitored.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task being monitored.
- PID
The identification number of the task being monitored.
- StkSize
The amount of memory in kilobytes reserved for the task as stack, but not necessarily used.
- StkRef
The amount of memory in kilobytes used as stack, referenced by the task.
- Command
The command name of the task.
- -T { TASK | CHILD | ALL }
-
This option specifies what has to be monitored by the pidstat command. The TASK keyword indicates that statistics are to be reported for individual tasks (this is the default option) whereas the CHILD keyword indicates that statistics are to be globally reported for the selected tasks and all their children. The ALL keyword indicates that statistics are to be reported for individual tasks and globally for the selected tasks and their children.
Note: Global statistics for tasks and all their children are not available for all options of pidstat. Also these statistics are not necessarily relevant to current time interval: The statistics of a child process are collected only when it finishes or it is killed.
- -t
-
Also display statistics for threads associated with selected tasks.
This option adds the following values to the reports:
- TGID
The identification number of the thread group leader.
- TID
The identification number of the thread being monitored.
- -U [ username ]
Display the real user name of the tasks being monitored instead of the UID. If username is specified, then only tasks belonging to the specified user are displayed.
- -u
-
Report CPU utilization.
When reporting statistics for individual tasks, the following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task being monitored.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task being monitored.
- PID
The identification number of the task being monitored.
- %usr
Percentage of CPU used by the task while executing at the user level (application), with or without nice priority. Note that this field does NOT include time spent running a virtual processor.
- %system
Percentage of CPU used by the task while executing at the system level (kernel).
- %guest
Percentage of CPU spent by the task in virtual machine (running a virtual processor).
- %wait
Percentage of CPU spent by the task while waiting to run.
- %CPU
Total percentage of CPU time used by the task. In an SMP environment, the task's CPU usage will be divided by the total number of CPU's if option -I has been entered on the command line.
- CPU
Processor number to which the task is attached.
- Command
The command name of the task.
When reporting global statistics for tasks and all their children, the following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- PID
The identification number of the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- usr-ms
Total number of milliseconds spent by the task and all its children while executing at the user level (application), with or without nice priority, and collected during the interval of time. Note that this field does NOT include time spent running a virtual processor.
- system-ms
Total number of milliseconds spent by the task and all its children while executing at the system level (kernel), and collected during the interval of time.
- guest-ms
Total number of milliseconds spent by the task and all its children in virtual machine (running a virtual processor).
- Command
The command name of the task which is being monitored together with its children.
- -V
Print version number then exit.
- -v
-
Report values of some kernel tables. The following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task being monitored.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task being monitored.
- PID
The identification number of the task being monitored.
- threads
Number of threads associated with current task.
- fd-nr
Number of file descriptors associated with current task.
- Command
The command name of the task.
- -w
-
Report task switching activity (kernels 2.6.23 and later only). The following values may be displayed:
- UID
The real user identification number of the task being monitored.
- USER
The name of the real user owning the task being monitored.
- PID
The identification number of the task being monitored.
- cswch/s
Total number of voluntary context switches the task made per second. A voluntary context switch occurs when a task blocks because it requires a resource that is unavailable.
- nvcswch/s
Total number of non voluntary context switches the task made per second. A involuntary context switch takes place when a task executes for the duration of its time slice and then is forced to relinquish the processor.
- Command
The command name of the task.
Environment
The pidstat command takes into account the following environment variables:
- S_COLORS
-
When this variable is set, display statistics in color on the terminal. Possible values for this variable are never, always or auto (the latter is the default).
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 indicates 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 item values like PID, UID or CPU number.
- M=
SGR substring for percentage values in the range from 50% to 75%.
- N=
SGR substring for non-zero statistics values and for tasks names.
- Z=
SGR substring for zero values and for threads names.
- 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 pidstat command will use the ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD) instead. The timestamp will also be compliant with ISO 8601 format.
Examples
- pidstat 2 5
Display five reports of CPU statistics for every active task in the system at two second intervals.
- pidstat -r -p 1643 2 5
Display five reports of page faults and memory statistics for PID 1643 at two second intervals.
- pidstat -C "fox|bird" -r -p ALL
Display global page faults and memory statistics for all the processes whose command name includes the string "fox" or "bird".
- pidstat -T CHILD -r 2 5
Display five reports of page faults statistics at two second intervals for the child processes of all tasks in the system. Only child processes with non-zero statistics values are displayed.
Bugs
/proc filesystem must be mounted for the pidstat command to work.
Files
/proc contains various files with system statistics.
See Also
sar(1), top(1), ps(1), mpstat(1), iostat(1), vmstat(8)
Referenced By
bcc-cpudist(8), bcc-runqlat(8), bcc-runqlen(8), bcc-runqslower(8), cifsiostat(1), iostat(1), mpstat(1), pcp-pidstat(1), runqlat(8), runqlen(8), sar(1).