VM_STAT(1)

🎀 VM_STAT(1) 🎀

okay so bestie, this page is VM_STAT(1) from the General Commands Manual, and the command at the center of it all is vm_stat. It's giving Mach virtual memory statistics, and honestly? iconic.

💖 NAME 💖

vm_stat — show Mach virtual memory statistics. periodt.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

vm_stat [[-c count] interval]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

vm_stat displays Mach virtual memory statistics. No cap. If the optional interval is specified, then vm_stat will display the statistics every interval seconds. In this case, each line of output displays the change in each statistic (an interval count of 1 displays the values per second). However, the first line of output following each banner displays the system-wide totals for each statistic. If a count is provided — that's the -c count from the synopsis — the command will terminate after count intervals. The following values are displayed:

• Pages free — the total number of free pages in the system.
• Pages active — the total number of pages currently in use and pageable.
• Pages inactive — the total number of pages on the inactive list.
• Pages speculative — the total number of pages on the speculative list.
• Pages throttled — the total number of pages on the throttled list (not wired but not pageable).
• Pages wired down — the total number of pages wired down. That is, pages that cannot be paged out.
• Pages purgeable — the total number of purgeable pages.
• Translation faults — the number of times the "vm_fault" routine has been called.
• Pages copy-on-write — the number of faults that caused a page to be copied (generally caused by copy-on-write faults).
• Pages zero filled — the total number of pages that have been zero-filled on demand.
• Pages reactivated — the total number of pages that have been moved from the inactive list to the active list (reactivated).
• Pages purged — the total number of pages that have been purged.
• File-backed pages — the total number of pages that are file-backed (non-swap).
• Anonymous pages — the total number of pages that are anonymous.
• Uncompressed pages — the total number of pages (uncompressed) held within the compressor.
• Pages used by VM compressor: the number of pages used to store compressed VM pages.
• Pages decompressed — the total number of pages that have been decompressed by the VM compressor.
• Pages compressed — the total number of pages that have been compressed by the VM compressor.
• Pageins — the total number of requests for pages from a pager (such as the inode pager).
• Pageouts — the total number of pages that have been paged out.
• Swapins — the total number of compressed pages that have been swapped back in from disk.
• Swapouts — the total number of compressed pages that have been swapped out to disk.

If interval is not specified, then vm_stat displays all accumulated statistics along with the page size. Slay.

Signed, sealed, delivered — this page is from macOS, dated August 13, 1997. Mwah 💋