System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration

ProcedureHow to Check System Table Status (sar -v)

  1. Use the sar -v command to report the status of the process table, inode table, file table, and shared memory record table.


    $ sar -v
    00:00:00  proc-sz    ov  inod-sz    ov  file-sz    ov   lock-sz
    01:00:00   43/922     0 2984/4236    0  322/322     0    0/0   

Example 13–15 Checking System Table Status (sar -v)

The following abbreviated example shows output from the sar -v command. This example shows that all tables are large enough to have no overflows. These tables are all dynamically allocated based on the amount of physical memory.


$ sar -v

SunOS balmyday 5.10 s10_51 sun4u    03/18/2004

00:00:04  proc-sz    ov  inod-sz    ov  file-sz    ov   lock-sz
01:00:00   69/8010    0 3476/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
02:00:01   69/8010    0 3476/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
03:00:00   69/8010    0 3476/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
04:00:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
05:00:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
06:00:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
07:00:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
08:00:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
08:20:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
08:40:01   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
09:00:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
09:20:00   69/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
09:40:00   74/8010    0 3494/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
10:00:00   75/8010    0 4918/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
10:20:00   72/8010    0 4918/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
10:40:00   71/8010    0 5018/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0   
11:00:00   77/8010    0 5018/34703    0    0/0       0    0/0  

Output from the -v option is described in the following table.

Field Name 

Description 

proc-sz

The number of process entries (proc structures) that are currently being used, or allocated, in the kernel.

inod-sz

The total number of inodes in memory compared to the maximum number of inodes that are allocated in the kernel. This number is not a strict high watermark. The number can overflow. 

file-sz

The size of the open system file table. The sz is given as 0, because space is allocated dynamically for the file table.

ov

The overflows that occur between sampling points for each table.  

lock-sz

The number of shared memory record table entries that are currently being used, or allocated, in the kernel. The sz is given as 0 because space is allocated dynamically for the shared memory record table.