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System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration     Oracle Solaris 11 Express 11/10
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Document Information

Preface

1.  Managing Terminals, Modems and Serial Port Services (Tasks)

2.  Displaying and Changing System Information (Tasks)

3.  Scheduling System Tasks (Tasks)

4.  Managing System Processes (Tasks)

5.  Monitoring System Performance (Tasks)

What's New in Managing System Performance?

LatencyTOP Performance Tuning Utility

Where to Find System Performance Tasks

System Performance and System Resources

Processes and System Performance

About Monitoring System Performance

Monitoring Tools

Displaying System Performance Information (Task Map)

Displaying Virtual Memory Statistics (vmstat)

How to Display Virtual Memory Statistics (vmstat)

How to Display System Event Information (vmstat -s)

How to Display Swapping Statistics (vmstat -S)

How to Display Interrupts Per Device (vmstat -i)

Displaying Disk Utilization Information (iostat)

How to Display Disk Utilization Information (iostat)

How to Display Extended Disk Statistics (iostat -xtc)

Displaying Disk Space Statistics (df)

How to Display Disk Space Information (df -k)

Monitoring System Activities (Task Map)

Monitoring System Activities (sar)

How to Check File Access (sar -a)

How to Check Buffer Activity (sar -b)

How to Check System Call Statistics (sar -c)

How to Check Disk Activity (sar -d)

How to Check Page-Out and Memory (sar -g)

Checking Kernel Memory Allocation

How to Check Kernel Memory Allocation (sar -k)

How to Check Interprocess Communication (sar -m)

How to Check Page-In Activity (sar -p)

How to Check Queue Activity (sar -q)

How to Check Unused Memory (sar -r)

How to Check CPU Utilization (sar -u)

How to Check System Table Status (sar -v)

How to Check Swapping Activity (sar -w)

How to Check Terminal Activity (sar -y)

How to Check Overall System Performance (sar -A)

Collecting System Activity Data Automatically (sar)

Running the sadc Command When Booting

Running the sadc Command Periodically With the sa1 Script

Producing Reports With the sa2 Shell Script

Setting Up Automatic Data Collection (sar)

How to Set Up Automatic Data Collection

6.  Troubleshooting Software Problems (Tasks)

7.  Managing Core Files (Tasks)

8.  Managing System Crash Information (Tasks)

9.  Troubleshooting Miscellaneous System Problems (Tasks)

Index

Processes and System Performance

The following table describes terms that are related to processes.

Table 5-1 Process Terminology

Term
Description
Process
Any system activity or job. Each time you boot a system, execute a command, or start an application, the system activates one or more processes.
Lightweight process (LWP)
A virtual CPU or execution resource. LWPs are scheduled by the kernel to use available CPU resources based on their scheduling class and priority. LWPs include a kernel thread and an LWP. A kernel thread contains information that has to be in memory all the time. An LWP contains information that is swappable.
Application thread
A series of instructions with a separate stack that can execute independently in a user's address space. Application threads can be multiplexed on top of LWPs.

A process can consist of multiple LWPs and multiple application threads. The kernel schedules a kernel-thread structure, which is the scheduling entity in the SunOS environment. Various process structures are described in the following table.

Table 5-2 Process Structures

Structure
Description
proc
Contains information that pertains to the whole process and must be in main memory all the time
kthread
Contains information that pertains to one LWP and must be in main memory all the time
user
Contains the “per process” information that is swappable
klwp
Contains the “per LWP process” information that is swappable

The following figure illustrates the relationships among these process structures.

Figure 5-1 Relationships Among Process Structures

Thetext in the table describes the figure.

Most process resources are accessible to all the threads in the process. Almost all process virtual memory is shared. A change in shared data by one thread is available to the other threads in the process.