>Number: 184755
>Category: bin
>Synopsis: The vmstat manualpage synopsis doesn't show all optional
>parameters
>Confidential: no
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: low
>Responsible: freebsd-bugs
>State: open
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class: doc-bug
>Submitter-Id: current-users
>Arrival-Date: Fri Dec 13 18:00:00 UTC 2013
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator: ShelLuser
>Release: 9.2-p2
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD smtp2.losoco.com 9.2-RELEASE-p2 FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE-p2 #2 r258858: Wed
Dec 4 23:53:05 CET 2013
[email protected]:/usr/obj/usr/src92/sys/SECKERNEL amd64
>Description:
The vmstat(8) manualpage shows the following synopsis:
vmstat [-afHhimPsz] [-c count] [-M core [-N system]] [-w wait] [-n devs]
[-p type,if,pass] [disks]
So it basically says that if you supply an optional parameter without
specifying a specific option (-c, -M, etc.) then you're specifying the disk to
display. We can see that this works as expected:
smtp2:/home/peter $ sysctl kern.disks
kern.disks: vtbd0
smtp2:/home/peter $ vmstat vtbd0
procs memory page disk faults cpu
r b w avm fre flt re pi po fr sr vt0 in sy cs us sy id
0 0 0 4271M 399M 996 0 0 0 1096 24 0 22 1353 470 2 1 97
However, if you provide a numerical parameter which isn't a disk (GEOM?) then
it will be used to provide a value for the -w option (-w: "Pause 'wait' seconds
between each display"). As can be seen here:
smtp2:/home/peter $ time vmstat 2
procs memory page disk faults cpu
r b w avm fre flt re pi po fr sr vt0 in sy cs us sy id
0 0 0 4351M 384M 996 0 0 0 1095 24 0 22 1352 470 2 1 97
0 0 0 4351M 384M 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 263 253 0 0 100
0 0 0 4351M 384M 16 0 0 0 148 0 40 26 224 453 0 1 99
^C 4.51s real 0.00s user 0.03s system
Better yet: even if you do specify a disk then you can also provide an extra
numerical parameter which will then be used as the wait interval.
>How-To-Repeat:
Start vmstat with a numerical parameter, either on its own or in addition to
providing the disk to work on. It will continue to display values at an
interval equal to the value of the numerical parameter.
>Fix:
My suggestion would be to change the synopsis section of the vmstat(8)
manualpage as follows:
SYNOPSIS
vmstat [-afHhimPsz] [-c count] [-M core [-N system]] [-w wait] [-n devs]
[-p type,if,pass] [disks] [interval]
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:
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