--- name: "systat" section: "1" platform: "openbsd" package: "man" version: "8.0-current-20261101" release: "OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01)" platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "openbsd"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/systat" --- # systat(1) display system statistics ## NAME **systat** – display system statistics ## SYNOPSIS **systat** \[**-aBbhiNn**\] \[**-d** *count*\] \[**-s** *delay*\] \[**-w** *width*\] \[*view*\] \[*delay*\] ## DESCRIPTION **systat** displays various system statistics in a screen-oriented fashion using the [curses(3)](/curses/3.md) screen display library. While **systat** is running, the screen is divided into different areas. The top line displays the current number of users, the three system load average figures over the last 1, 5, and 15 minute intervals, the host name, and the system time. The bottom line of the screen is reserved for user input and error messages. The information displayed in the rest of the screen comprises a *view*, and is the main interface for displaying different types of system statistics. The **vmstat** view is the default. Certain information may be discarded when the screen size is insufficient for display. For example, on a machine with 10 drives the **iostat** bar graph displays only 3 drives on a 24 line terminal. The options are as follows: - **-a** Display all lines. - **-B** Raw, non-interactive mode. The default is to exit after two screen updates, with statistics only ever displayed once. Useful for views such as **cpu**, where initial calculations are useless. - **-b** Raw, non-interactive mode. The default is to exit after one screen update, with statistics displayed every update. - **-d** *count* Exit after *count* screen updates. - **-h** Human readable mode, where applicable. - **-i** Interactive mode. - **-N** Resolve network addresses to names. This is the opposite of the **-n** option. - **-n** Do not try to reverse map IP addresses. This is the default. - **-s** *delay* Specifies the screen refresh time interval in seconds. This option is overridden by the final *delay* argument, if given. The default interval is 5 seconds. - **-w** *width* Specifies the maximum width of the output in raw, non-interactive mode. - *view* The *view* argument expects to be one of: **vmstat**, **pigs**, **ifstat**, **iostat**, **sensors**, **mbufs**, **netstat**, **swap**, **states**, **rules**, **queues**, **pf**, **pool**, **pcache**, **malloc**, **buckets**, **nfsclient**, **nfsserver**, **cpu**, or **uvm**. These displays can also be requested interactively and are described in full detail below. *view* may be abbreviated to the minimum unambiguous prefix; for example, “io” for “iostat”. - *delay* The *delay* argument specifies the screen refresh time interval in seconds. This is provided for backwards compatibility, and overrides any interval specified with the **-s** flag. The default interval is 5 seconds. Certain characters cause immediate action by **systat**. These are: - **:** Move the cursor to the command line and interpret the input line typed as a command. While entering a command the current character erase, word erase, and line kill characters may be used. - **h** Toggle printing the names of the available views on the command line. - **o** Select the next ordering which sorts the rows according to a combination of columns. Available orderings depend on the view. Not all views support orderings. - **p** Pause **systat**. - **q** Quit **systat**. - **r** Reverse the selected ordering if supported by the view. - **s** Change the screen refresh interval in seconds. - **,** Print numbers with thousand separators, where applicable. - **^A** \| ⟨**Home**⟩ Jump to the beginning of the current view. - **^B** \| ⟨**right** **arrow**⟩ Select the previous view. - **^E** \| ⟨**End**⟩ Jump to the end of the current view. - **^F** \| ⟨**left** **arrow**⟩ Select the next view. - **^G** Toggle printing the name of the current view being shown and the refresh interval. - **^L** Refresh the screen. - **^N** \| ⟨**down** **arrow**⟩ Scroll current view down by one line. - **^P** \| ⟨**up** **arrow**⟩ Scroll current view up by one line. - **^V** \| ⟨**Page** **Down**⟩ Scroll current view down by one page. - **Alt-V** \| ⟨**Page** **Up**⟩ Scroll current view up by one page. The following commands are interpreted by the “global” command interpreter. - **help** Toggle printing the names of the available views on the command line. - **human** Toggle human readable mode, where applicable. - **order** Toggle printing the names of the available orderings on the command line. - **quit** Quit **systat**. (This may be abbreviated to **q**.) - **stop** Stop refreshing the screen. - \[**start**\] \[*number*\] Start (continue) refreshing the screen. If a second, numeric, argument is provided it is interpreted as a refresh interval (in seconds). Supplying only a number will set the refresh interval to this value. *view* may be abbreviated to the minimum unambiguous prefix. The available views are: - **buckets** Display kernel [malloc(9)](/malloc/9.md) bucket statistics similar to the output of **vmstat** **-m**. - **cpu** Display information about the average usage of each CPU, similar to the output provided by [top(1)](/top/1.md). - **ifstat** Display interface statistics. The “State” column has the format **up**\|**dn** \[:**U**\|**D**\]. ‘up’ and ‘dn’ represent whether the interface is up or down. ‘U’ and ‘D’ represent whether the interface is connected or not; in the case of [carp(4)](/carp/4.md) interfaces, whether the interface is in master or backup state, respectively. The character **B** changes the counter view between bytes and bits. Pressing **b** displays statistics as calculated from boot time. **r** changes the counters to show their totals as calculated between display refreshes. **t** changes the counters to show the average per second over the display refresh interval; this is the default. **d** displays input and output queue drops. **e** displays input and output errors. **f** displays input and output queue drops plus errors. This is the default view. - **iostat** Display statistics about disk throughput. Statistics on disk throughput show, for each drive, data transferred in bytes, number of disk transactions performed, and time spent in disk accesses (in fractions of a second). Pressing **b** displays statistics as calculated from boot time. **t** changes the counters to show the average per second over the display refresh interval; this is the default. - **malloc** Display kernel [malloc(9)](/malloc/9.md) type statistics similar to the output of **vmstat** **-m**. Available orderings are: **name**, **inuse**, **memuse**, and **requests**. - **mbufs** Display mbuf usage information from kernel pools and mbuf cluster pool statistics of each network interface. - **netstat** Display network connections. Each address is displayed numerically in the format “host:port”. By default, network servers awaiting requests are not displayed. It is also possible to have addresses displayed symbolically, when possible, and limit the display to a set of protocols (the minimum unambiguous prefix may be supplied): - **all** Toggle the displaying of server processes awaiting requests (this is the equivalent of the **-a** flag to [netstat(1)](/netstat/1.md)). - **names** Display network addresses symbolically. - **numbers** Display network addresses numerically. - **reset** Reset matching mechanisms to the default. - **tcp** \| **udp** \| **other** Display only network connections using the indicated protocol. - **nfsclient** Display statistics about NFS client activity. Output resembles **nfsstat** **-c**. - **nfsserver** Display statistics about NFS server activity. Output resembles **nfsstat** **-s**. - **pf** Display filter information about [pf(4)](/pf/4.md), similar to the output of **pfctl** **-s** **info** option. - **pigs** Display those processes resident in main memory and getting the largest portion of the processor. When less than 100% of the processor is scheduled to user processes, the remaining time is accounted to the “idle” process. - **pool** Display kernel pool(9) statistics similar to the output of **vmstat** **-m**. Available orderings are: **name**, **requests**, **size**, and **number** **of** **pages**. By default only the statistics of active pools are displayed but pressing **A** changes the view to show all of them. - **pcache** Display kernel pool(9) per CPU cache statistics. Ordering is available on all columns. - **queues** Display statistics about the active queues, similar to the output of **pfctl** **-s** **queue**. - **rules** Display pf rules statistics, similar to the output of **pfctl** **-s** **rules**. - **sensors** Display the current values of available hardware sensors, in a format similar to that of [sysctl(8)](/sysctl/8.md). - **states** Display pf states statistics, similar to the output of **pfctl** **-s** **states**. Available orderings are: **none**, **bytes**, **expiry**, **packets**, **age**, **source** **address**, **source** **port**, **destination** **address**, **destination** **port**, **rate**, and **peak** columns. - **swap** Show information about swap space usage on all the swap areas compiled into the kernel. The first column is the device name of the partition. The next column is the total space available in the partition. The *Used* column indicates the total blocks used so far; the graph shows the percentage of space in use on each partition. If there is more than one swap partition in use, a total line is also shown. Areas known to the kernel but not in use are shown as not available. - **vmstat** Take over the entire display and show a (rather crowded) compendium of statistics related to virtual memory usage, process scheduling, device interrupts, system name translation caching, disk I/O, etc. This view is the default. Below the top line are statistics on memory utilization. The first row of the table reports memory usage only among active processes, that is, processes that have run in the previous twenty seconds. The second row reports on memory usage of all processes. The first column reports on the amount of physical memory claimed by processes. The second column reports the same figure for virtual memory, that is, the amount of memory that would be needed if all processes were resident at the same time. Finally, the last column shows the amount of physical memory on the free list. Below the memory display is a list of the average number of processes (over the last refresh interval) that are runnable (‘r’), in disk wait other than paging (‘d’), sleeping (‘s’), and swapped out but desiring to run (‘w’). Below the queue length listing is a numerical listing and a bar graph showing the amount of interrupt (shown as ‘\|’), spinning (shown as ‘@’), system (shown as ‘=’), user plus nice (shown as ‘\>’), and idle time (shown as ‘ ’). To the right of the Proc display are statistics about Context switches (“Csw”), Traps (“Trp”), Syscalls (“Sys”), Interrupts (“Int”), Soft interrupts (“Sof”), and Faults (“Flt”) which have occurred during the last refresh interval. Below the CPU usage graph are statistics on name translations. It lists the number of names translated in the previous interval, the number and percentage of the translations that were handled by the system wide name translation cache, and the number and percentage of the translations that were handled by the per process name translation cache. At the bottom left is the disk usage display. It reports the number of seeks, transfers, number of kilobyte blocks transferred per second averaged over the refresh period of the display, and the time spent in disk accesses. Under the date in the upper right hand quadrant are statistics on paging and swapping activity. The first two columns report the average number of pages brought in and out per second over the last refresh interval due to page faults and the paging daemon. The third and fourth columns report the average number of pages brought in and out per second over the last refresh interval due to swap requests initiated by the scheduler. The first row of the display shows the average number of disk transfers per second over the last refresh interval. The second row of the display shows the average number of pages transferred per second over the last refresh interval. Running down the right hand side of the display is a breakdown of the interrupts being handled by the system. At the top of the list is the total interrupts per second over the time interval. The rest of the column breaks down the total on a device by device basis. Only devices that have interrupted at least once since boot time are shown. Below the Interrupts display are the average number of input and output packets per second for all interfaces over the last refresh interval. Below the SWAPPING display and slightly to the left of the Interrupts display is a list of virtual memory statistics. The abbreviations are: - forks process forks - fkppw forks where parent waits - fksvm forks where vmspace is shared - pwait fault had to wait on a page - relck fault relock called - rlkok fault relock is successful - noram faults out of ram - ndcpy number of times fault clears "need copy" - fltcp number of times fault promotes with copy - zfod fault promotes with zerofill - cow number of times fault anon cow - fmin min number of free pages - ftarg target number of free pages - itarg target number of inactive pages - wired wired pages - pdfre pages daemon freed since boot - pdscn pages daemon scanned since boot - pzidl number of zeroed pages - kmape number of kernel map entries - **uvm** Display statistics relevant to the UVM subsystem. The statistics are divided into eight groups. - Page Counters: - npages pages managed by UVM - free free pages - active active pages - inactive freed pages that may be wanted back - paging pages in the process of being paged out - wired wired pages - zeropages zero'd pages - reserve\_pagedaemon pages reserved for pagedaemon - reserve\_kernel pages reserved for kernel. - Stats Counters: - faults page fault count - traps trap count - intrs interrupt count - swtch context switch count - softs software interrupt count - syscalls system calls - pageins pagein operation count - pgswapin pages swapped in - pgswapout pages swapped out - forks forks. - forks\_ppwait forks where parent waits - forks\_sharevm forks where vmspace is shared - pga\_zerohit pagealloc found requested zero'd pages - pga\_zeromiss pagealloc failed to obtain zero'd pages - Fault Counters: - fltnoram fault was out of ram - fltnoanon fault was out of anons - fltnoamap fault was out of amap chunks - fltpgwait fault had to wait on a page - fltpgrele fault found a released page - fltrelck fault relock was a success - fltnorelck fault relock failed - fltup fault upgrade was a success - fltnoup fault upgrade failed - fltanget fault got anon page - fltanretry fault retried an anon get - fltamcopy fault cleared "needs copy" - fltnamap fault mapped a neighbor anon page - fltnomap fault mapped a neighbor obj page - fltlget fault did a locked pgo\_get - fltget fault did an unlocked get - flt\_anon fault anon (case 1a) - flt\_acow fault anon cow (case 1b) - flt\_obj fault was on object page (2a) - flt\_prcopy fault promotes with copy (2b) - flt\_przero fault promotes with zerofill (2b) - Pageout Params: - freemin minimum number of free pages - freetarg target number of free pages - inactarg target number of inactive pages - wiredmax maximum number of wired pages - Per-CPU Counters: - pcphit pages allocated from a per-CPU cache since boot - pcpmiss times a per-CPU cache was empty when allocating a page - Swap Counters: - nswapdev configured swap devices - swpages PAGE\_SIZE'ed swap pages - swpginuse swap pages in use - swpgonly in use swap pages not in RAM - nswget swap pages moved from disk to RAM - nanon total anon's - Daemon Counters: - pdwoke times daemon woke up - pdrevs times daemon rev'd clock hand - pdswout times daemon called for swapout - pdfreed pages daemon freed since boot - pdscans pages daemon scanned since boot - pdanscan anonymous pages scanned by daemon - pdobscan object pages scanned by daemon - pdreact pages daemon reactivated since boot - pdbusy times daemon found a busy page - pdpageouts times daemon started a pageout - pdpending times daemon got a pending pagout - pddeact pages daemon deactivates - Misc Counters: - fpswtch FPU context switches - kmapent kernel map entries - Constants: - pagesize size of a page, always a power of 2 - pagemask page mask - pageshift page shift ## FILES - */etc/hosts* Host names. - */etc/pf.conf* [pf(4)](/pf/4.md) configuration. - */etc/services* Port names. ## SEE ALSO [fstat(1)](/fstat/1.md), [kill(1)](/kill/1.md), [netstat(1)](/netstat/1.md), [nfsstat(1)](/nfsstat/1.md), [ps(1)](/ps/1.md), [top(1)](/top/1.md), [iostat(8)](/iostat/8.md), [pfctl(8)](/pfctl/8.md), [pstat(8)](/pstat/8.md), [renice(8)](/renice/8.md), [sysctl(8)](/sysctl/8.md), [vmstat(8)](/vmstat/8.md) ## HISTORY The **systat** program first appeared in 4.3BSD. ## BUGS Certain displays presume a minimum of 80 characters per line. The **vmstat** display looks out of place because it is (it was added in as a separate display rather than created as a new program).