Originally posted by: amy_dahoon

Dear all,

I am new in AIX... I use "topas" command to see Paging Space Size in MB and here are the output:

PAGING SPACE SIZE, MB 4608
% Used 53.1
% Free 46.8

Then I would like to know what processes are using the PAGING SPACE up to 46.8%, I issue the command with "ps avg" displays info about all processes.
Here are the output (some of them):
PID TTY STAT TIME PGIN SIZE RSS LIM TSIZ TRS %CPU %MEM COMMAND
0 - A 47:39 7 64 64 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 swapper
1 - A 0:09 108 824 860 1280000 25 36 0.0 0.0 /etc/in
8196 - A 65714:54 0 48 48 xx 0 0 48.7 0.0 wait
12294 - A 65715:21 0 48 48 xx 0 0 48.7 0.0 wait
16392 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait
20490 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait
24588 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait
28686 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait
32784 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait
36882 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait
40980 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait
45078 - A 0:00 0 48 48 xx 0 0 0.0 0.0 wait

We have total paging space 4608 MB and 53.1% is used (4608 MB * 53.1% = 2446 MB has been used). I want to know what processes are using and how much paging space has been used for each process. As a result, I use command "ps avg".

I have 2 questions:
1) Is it I sum up all the "SIZE" column (ps avg) and the total paging space should be round 2446 MB (4608 MB * 53.1% = 2446 MB has been used)?
I have try but it seems not.

2) What does not mean in column "TIME" and "STAT"?
I have read the document and in STAT column R means Running, S means sleeping and Z means Zombie. But it didn't say "A" stands for what?

Please advice,
Amy

Originally posted by: Kosala

Hi,

generally for a memory accounting I use a more controlled ps command, to extract exactly what I want to look at. Have a look at ps -o option.

for example:

1. ps -eko vsz,rssize | awk '{rss += $2; vsz+=$1}END{ print rss" "vsz}'

would give you a total resident foot prints and virtual foot prints. But if you're more interested in finding out what processes contributing to the paging space, I would suggest you take look at vsz-rssize for each process. For example:

1. ps -eko vsz,rssize,pid | awk '{print $1-$2" "$3}' | sort -nr

These calculations are just guides (lets say a macroscopic snapshot) and not perfect accounting calculations. For example the shared libs and some memory segments are not represented in the RSS, therefore you might find some processes are having a negative figures for VSZ-RSS. but the the higher the difference, that means those processes are contributing to paging.

HTH,
Kosala

Originally posted by: nagger

Hi,
For the meaning of the STAT (status) column is documented in the manual.
Find it at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds4/ps.htm

Where you find that A = Active.

What active means is, of course, another question.

thanks Nigel

Originally posted by: nagger

Hi,
It is common to confuse size and memory use with the used of the paging space.
Memory is a very complicated, often shared between processes and some paged from the file system and not the paging space.

ps, topas, sar and other like tools - including nmon do not explain the use of paging space.
They only detail virtual memory use.

The only tool that does explain a processes paging space use is svmon.
As the memory and paging space use is very complicated this means the svmon output is fairly complicated too.

Hope this helps, Nigel