Systemtap disk and network statistic monitoring tools ===================================================== The netdevstat and diskdevstat are 2 systemtap tools that allow the user to collect detailed information about network and disk activity of all applications running on a system. These 2 tools were inspired by powertop, which shows number of wakeups for every application per second. The basic idea is to collect statistic about the running applications in a form that allows a user to identify power greedy applications. That means f.e. instead of doing fewer and bigger IO operations they do more and smaller ones. Current monitoring tools show typically only the transfer speeds, which isn't very meaningful in that context. To run those tools, you need to have systemtap installed. Then you can simply type netdevstat or diskdevstat and the scripts will start. Both can take up to 3 parameters: diskdevstat [Update interval] [Total duration] [Display histogram at the end] netdevstat [Update interval] [Total duration] [Display histogram at the end] Update interval: Time in seconds between updates for the display. Default: 5 Total duration: Time in seconds for the whole run. Default: 86400 (1 day) Display histogram at the end: Flag if at the end of the execution a histogram for the whole collected data. The output will look similar to top and/or powertop. Here a sample output of a longer diskdevstat run on a Fedora 10 system running KDE 4.2: PID UID DEV WRITE_CNT WRITE_MIN WRITE_MAX WRITE_AVG READ_CNT READ_MIN READ_MAX READ_AVG COMMAND 2789 2903 sda1 854 0.000 120.000 39.836 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 plasma 15494 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 758 0.000 0.012 0.000 0logwatch 15520 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 140 0.000 0.009 0.000 perl 15549 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 140 0.000 0.009 0.000 perl 15585 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 108 0.001 0.002 0.000 perl 2573 0 sda1 63 0.033 3600.015 515.226 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 auditd 15429 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.009 0.009 0.000 crond 15379 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.008 0.008 0.000 crond 15473 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.008 0.008 0.000 crond 15415 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.008 0.008 0.000 crond 15433 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.008 0.008 0.000 crond 15425 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.007 0.007 0.000 crond 15375 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.008 0.008 0.000 crond 15477 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.007 0.007 0.000 crond 15469 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.007 0.007 0.000 crond 15419 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 62 0.008 0.008 0.000 crond 15481 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 61 0.000 0.001 0.000 crond 15355 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 37 0.000 0.014 0.001 laptop_mode 2153 0 sda1 26 0.003 3600.029 1290.730 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 rsyslogd 15575 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 16 0.000 0.000 0.000 cat 15581 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.002 0.000 perl 15582 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.002 0.000 perl 15579 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.000 0.001 0.000 perl 15580 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.001 0.000 perl 15354 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.000 0.170 0.014 sh 15584 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.002 0.000 perl 15548 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.014 0.001 perl 15577 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.003 0.000 perl 15519 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.005 0.000 perl 15578 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.001 0.000 perl 15583 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 12 0.001 0.001 0.000 perl 15547 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 11 0.000 0.002 0.000 perl 15576 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 11 0.001 0.001 0.000 perl 15518 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 11 0.000 0.001 0.000 perl 15354 0 sda1 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 10 0.053 0.053 0.005 lm_lid.sh Here a quick explanation of each column: PID: Process ID of the application UID: User ID under which the applications is running DEV: Device on which the IO took place WRITE_CNT: Total number of write operations WRITE_MIN: Lowest time in seconds for 2 consecutive writes WRITE_MAX: Largest time in seconds for 2 consecutive writes WRITE_AVG: Average time in seconds for 2 consecutive writes READ_CNT: Total number of read operations READ_MIN: Lowest time in seconds for 2 consecutive reads READ_MAX: Largest time in seconds for 2 consecutive reads READ_AVG: Average time in seconds for 2 consecutive reads COMMAND: Name of the process In this example 3 very obvious applications stand out: PID UID DEV WRITE_CNT WRITE_MIN WRITE_MAX WRITE_AVG READ_CNT READ_MIN READ_MAX READ_AVG COMMAND 2789 2903 sda1 854 0.000 120.000 39.836 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 plasma 2573 0 sda1 63 0.033 3600.015 515.226 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 auditd 2153 0 sda1 26 0.003 3600.029 1290.730 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 rsyslogd Those are the 3 applications that have a WRITE_CNT > 0, meaning they performed some form of write during the measurement. Of those, plasma was the worst offender by a large amount. For one in total number of writes and of course the average time between writes was also the lowest. This would be the best candidate to investigate if you're concerned about power inefficient applications.