The mpstat command, part of the sysstat package like iostat, is a tool designed for monitoring CPU activity in Linux systems. It can be used on both single processor (UP) and multi-processor (SMP) machines. By default, mpstat displays CPU utilization reports, and if no specific activity is selected, it provides the global average CPU usage since the system’s startup. The utility is capable of reporting detailed statistics for each processor or for the processors as a group.
As with iostat, the installation of mpstat is straightforward:
aptitude install sysstatExecuting mpstat without any parameters provides a snapshot of the CPU activities across all processors since boot. The command can be customized with various parameters to alter its output for more specific monitoring needs.
Basic Command Usage:
mpstat 2 5, will result in the command producing CPU activity reports every two seconds, five times in total and calculate the average.mpstat 2 5
Linux 6.1.0-18-amd64 (v2) 03/05/2024 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
01:22:02 PM CPU %usr %nice %sys %iowait %irq %soft %steal %guest %gnice %idle
01:22:04 PM all 20.97 0.00 5.99 0.00 0.00 1.87 0.00 0.00 0.00 71.16
01:22:06 PM all 21.12 0.00 5.98 0.00 0.00 1.53 0.00 0.00 0.00 71.37
01:22:08 PM all 24.17 0.00 5.98 0.13 0.00 0.89 0.00 0.00 0.00 68.83
01:22:10 PM all 22.26 0.00 5.53 0.00 0.00 1.51 0.00 0.00 0.00 70.69
01:22:12 PM all 24.34 0.00 5.14 0.00 0.00 1.63 0.00 0.00 0.00 68.88
Average: all 22.57 0.00 5.73 0.03 0.00 1.49 0.00 0.00 0.00 70.19-P followed by a processor number (e.g., -P 1 for the first processor) or ALL (e.g., -P ALL), you can view statistics for specific processors or for all processors, respectively.mpstat -P ALL
Linux 6.1.0-18-amd64 (v2) 03/05/2024 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
01:25:40 PM CPU %usr %nice %sys %iowait %irq %soft %steal %guest %gnice %idle
01:25:40 PM all 17.14 0.00 5.06 0.03 0.00 0.81 0.00 0.28 0.00 76.67
01:25:40 PM 0 17.38 0.00 4.98 0.03 0.00 0.91 0.00 0.26 0.00 76.46
01:25:40 PM 1 17.28 0.00 4.84 0.03 0.00 1.32 0.00 0.31 0.00 76.22
01:25:40 PM 2 17.38 0.00 4.97 0.03 0.00 0.61 0.00 0.33 0.00 76.69
01:25:40 PM 3 16.53 0.00 5.47 0.03 0.00 0.42 0.00 0.24 0.00 77.32-I option (e.g., -I SCPU, -I CPU, -I SUM, or -I ALL) is used for reporting different types of interrupts statistics per second by CPU.mpstat -I SUM
Linux 6.1.0-18-amd64 (v2) 03/05/2024 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
01:26:57 PM CPU intr/s
01:26:57 PM all 2164.37mpstat -I ALL
Linux 6.1.0-18-amd64 (v2) 03/05/2024 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
01:41:52 PM CPU intr/s
01:41:52 PM all 2167.22
01:41:52 PM CPU 0/s 1/s 4/s 8/s 9/s ...
01:41:52 PM 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 ...
01:41:52 PM 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 ...
01:41:52 PM 2 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 ...
01:41:52 PM 3 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 ...
01:41:52 PM CPU HI/s TIMER/s NET_TX/s NET_RX/s BLOCK/s ...
01:41:52 PM 0 0.05 18.67 0.01 149.59 0.00 ...
01:41:52 PM 1 416.58 16.47 0.00 0.30 0.00 ...
01:41:52 PM 2 0.04 27.01 0.00 0.35 6.51 ...
01:41:52 PM 3 0.03 17.14 0.00 0.32 0.00 ...Advanced Usage:
JSON Output: For programmatically parsing the output, the -o JSON option formats the statistics in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). See IoStat for ideas on how to use this format.
Utilization of Specific Processors: To focus on particular processors, use mpstat -P 0,2,3 specifying the processors of interest.
mpstat -P 0,2,3
Linux 6.1.0-18-amd64 (v2) 03/05/2024 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
01:41:12 PM CPU %usr %nice %sys %iowait %irq %soft %steal %guest %gnice %idle
01:41:12 PM 0 17.39 0.00 4.98 0.03 0.00 0.91 0.00 0.26 0.00 76.44
01:41:12 PM 2 17.38 0.00 4.97 0.03 0.00 0.61 0.00 0.33 0.00 76.69
01:41:12 PM 3 16.53 0.00 5.47 0.03 0.00 0.42 0.00 0.24 0.00 77.32mpstat -N ALL for statistics based on NUMA node placement.mpstat -P 0,2,3 -N ALL
Linux 6.1.0-18-amd64 (v2) 03/05/2024 _x86_64_ (4 CPU)
01:40:28 PM CPU %usr %nice %sys %iowait %irq %soft %steal %guest %gnice %idle
01:40:28 PM 0 17.38 0.00 4.98 0.03 0.00 0.91 0.00 0.26 0.00 76.44
01:40:28 PM 2 17.38 0.00 4.97 0.03 0.00 0.61 0.00 0.33 0.00 76.69
01:40:28 PM 3 16.53 0.00 5.47 0.03 0.00 0.42 0.00 0.24 0.00 77.32
01:40:28 PM NODE %usr %nice %sys %iowait %irq %soft %steal %guest %gnice %idle
01:40:28 PM all 17.15 0.00 5.06 0.03 0.00 0.81 0.00 0.28 0.00 76.66
01:40:28 PM 0 17.15 0.00 5.06 0.03 0.00 0.81 0.00 0.28 0.00 76.66| Version | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 0.1.0 | 2024-03-05 | Initial release |