USE Method: Unix 7th Edition Performance Checklist


PDP 11/70 front panel (similar to the 11/45)

Out of curiosity, I've developed a USE Method-based performance checklist for Unix 7th Edition on a PDP-11/45, which I've been running via a PDP simulator. 7th Edition is from 1979, and was the first Unix with iostat(1M) and pstat(1M), enabling more serious performance analysis from shipped tools. Were I to write a checklist for earlier Unixes, it would contain many more "unknowns".

I've worked on various Unix derivatives over the years, and it's been interesting to study this earlier version and see so many familiar areas.

Example screenshots from various tools are shown at the end of this page.

Physical Resources

componenttypemetric
CPUutilizationsystem-wide: iostat 1, utilization is "user" + "nice" + "systm"; per-process: ps alx, "CPU" shows recent CPU usage (max 255), and "TIME" shows cumulative minutes:seconds of CPU time
CPUsaturationps alx | awk '$2 == "R" { r++ } END { print r - 1 }', shows the number of runnable processes
CPUerrorsconsole message if lucky, otherwise panic
Memory capacityutilizationsystem-wide: unknown [1]; per-type: unknown [2]; per-process: ps alx, "SZ" is the in-core (main memory) in blocks (512 bytes); pstat -p, "SIZE" is in-core size, in units of core clicks (64 bytes) and printed in octal!
Memory capacitysaturationsystem-wide: iostat 1, sustained "tpm" may be caused by swapping to disk; significant delays as processes wait for space to swap in
Memory capacityerrorsmalloc() returns 0; ENOMEM
Disk I/Outilizationsystem-wide: iostat -i 1, "IO active" plus "IO wait" percents; per-disk-controller: iostat -i 1, RF, RK, RP "active" percents; rough estimate using iostat 1, and "tpm" for transactions per minute on expected max; per-disk: listen to each rattle; unknown from Unix, unless only 1 disk per controller; per-process: unknown
Disk I/Osaturationunknown [3]
Disk I/Oerrorsmight get a console message, eg, "err on dev", "ECC on dev" or "no space on dev", otherwise unknown [4]
Tape I/Outilizationlook at tape drives and watch them spin [5]
Tape I/Osaturationnot sure this one makes sense
Tape I/Oerrorsmight get a console message, eg "err on dev" or "mt0 off line", otherwise unknown [4]
Storage capacityutilizationfile systems: df, by default lists free space in blocks (512 bytes) for root and /usr [6]; per-user: quot, shows blocks by user; swap: unknown [7]; usage via pstat -p, "F" with the 010 flag ("swapped out")
Storage capacitysaturationonce full, "no space on dev" messages to console
Storage capacityerrorsfile systems: once full, "no space on dev" messages to console; swap: "out of swap space" on console
Unibusutilizationset front panel data display to "BUS REGISTER" and watch the frequency of data display changes [8]
Unibussaturationfrequent flashing of the "PAUSE" front panel indicator light
Unibuserrorsunknown

Software Resources

componenttypemetric
Process capacityutilizationsystem-wide: pstat -ap, count active processes, or, pstat -ap | awk '$2 == "processes" { p = $1 } END { printf "%d/%d\n", p, NR - 1 }'; per-user: ps, compare process count (lines) to user limit MAXUPRC (usually 25)
Process capacitysaturationhigh process counts mean either memory pressure and swapping, out of process slots, or at user limit (see errors)
Process capacityerrorsBourne shell will enter a try/pause loop [9]; The Thompson shell (shipped as osh, old-shell) says "try again"
File descriptorsutilizationsystem-wide: pstat -f, "open files" shows the number (or count lines), compare with file table size NFILE (usually 175)
File descriptorssaturationI don't think this one makes sense, once full, see errors
File descriptorserrorsonce full, "no file" error (ENFILE). See falloc()

Other Tools

Also worth mentioning, Unix 7th Edition included time(1) to print real/user/sys times, and other options to pstat(1M) including pstat -u addr to print various proc details.

Tools like uptime and vmstat are conspicuously absent, since these didn't exist in 7th Edition. They were added by BSD.

Example Outputs

The following are various screenshots from the tools used in the previous checklist, and more.

Looking around:

# who
root     console Dec 31 23:57
brendan  tty00   Jan  1 00:01

# date
Thu Jan  1 03:51:34 EST 1970

# ls -l /etc/passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root      170 Dec 31 19:41 /etc/passwd

# cat /etc/passwd
root:VwL97VCAx1Qhs:0:1::/:
daemon:x:1:1::/:
sys::2:2::/usr/sys:
bin::3:3::/bin:
uucp::4:4::/usr/lib/uucp:/usr/lib/uucico
dmr::7:3::/usr/dmr:
brendan::11:3::/usr/brendan:

I didn't run the uname and uptime commands, as they don't exist yet.

Disk free (blocks) using df(1M) and quot(1M):

# df
/dev/rp0 878
/dev/rp3 51789

# quot
/dev/rrp3:
14875   bin
 2234   brendan
 1208   sys
  381   root
  129   uucp
   21   #43
    4   dmr
    1   daemon

Process status with ps(1):

# ps
   PID TTY TIME CMD
    16 co  0:00 -sh 
   407 co  0:00 ps 

# ps alx
 F S UID   PID  PPID CPU PRI NICE  ADDR  SZ  WCHAN TTY TIME CMD
 3 S   0     0     0   0   0   20  2253   2   4412 ?  186:14 swapper
 1 S   0     1     0   0  30   20  2423   8  46520 ?   0:00 /etc/init
 1 S   0    16     1   0  30   20  2273  11  46554 co  0:00 -sh 
 1 S  11    17     1   0  30   20  2777  11  46610 00  0:00 -sh 
 1 S   0    12     1   0  40   20  3127   5 140000 ?   0:00 /etc/update
 1 S   1    15     1   0  40   20  3207  10 140000 ?   0:00 /etc/cron
 1 R  11   384    17 235  74   30  2517   5        00  7:09 ./burncpu 
 1 S  11   431    17   0  40   20  3327   8 140000 00  0:00 sleep 600 
 1 S  11   432    17   0  28   20  3422  21   5154 00  0:00 ed tm.c 
 1 R   0   433    16   4  50   20  5266  20        co  0:00 ps alx 

Using pstat(1M) to dump the entire process table:

# pstat -ap
10 processes
   LOC S  F  PRI SIGNAL UID TIM CPU NI  PGRP   PID  PPID ADDR SIZE  WCHAN   LINK  TEXTP  CLKT
 46464 1  3    0      0   0 127   0 20     0     0     0 2253   20   4412      0      0 0
 46520 1  1   30      0   0 127   0 20     0     1     0 2423   74  46520      0  56634 0
 46554 1  1   30      0   0 127   0 20    16    16     1 2273  130  46554      0  56650 0
 46610 1  1   30      0  11 127   0 20    17    17     1 2777  130  46610      0  56650 0
 46644 1  1   40      0   0 127   0 20     0    12     1 3127   47 140000  46770  56664 12
 46700 1  1   40      0   1 127   0 20     0    15     1 3207  120 140000  46644  56700 1
 46734 3  1   74      0  11 127 229 30    17   384    17 2517   47      0      0      0 0
 46770 1  1   40      0  11  69   0 20    17   431    17 3327   73 140000      0  57024 531
 47024 1  1   28      0  11  64   0 20    17   432    17 3422  247   5154      0  57040 0
 47060 3  1   50      0   0   0   1 20    16   435    16 5041  216      0  46734  57054 0
 47114 0  0   50      0  11   0   0 20     0     0     0  400    0      0      0      0 0
 47150 0  0   50      0   0   0   5 20     0     0     0131000    0      0      4      0 0
 47204 0  0   20      0   0   0   4 20     0     0     0131000    0      0      3      0 0
 47240 0  0   50      0   1   0   0 20     0     0     0    0    0      0      0      0 0
[...zero lines truncated...]

... and the open file table:

# pstat -f
9 open files
  LOC   FLG CNT   INO    OFFS
  06754 RW    8  011770 818
  06764 RW    7  012102 170244
  06774 R     1  012440 0
  07004 R     1  012552 0
  07014 R     1  013446 0
  07024 R     1  011544 0
  07034 R     1  011544 0
  07044 R     1  013446 0
  07054 R     1  014566 3564

... and various struct user details:

# pstat -u 2517
rsav 0 0
segflg, error 0, 0
uids 11,3,11,3
procp 046734
base, count, offset 0172 0 138
cdir 013110
dbuf burncpu
dirp 0177444
dent 2014 burncpu
pdir 0
dseg     020       0       0       0       0       0       0 0177647
        0406       0       0       0       0       0       0  065416
file   07014   06754   06754       0       0       0       0       0       0       0
           0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0
args 0177432 0 0177706 0 0
sizes 0 02 025
sep 0
qsav 02642 021722
ssav 0130 046610
sigs 0 0 01 01 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
times 1801 0
ctimes 0 0
ar0 0141772

intflg 0
ttyp 05154
ttydev 3,0
comm burncpu

Disk and CPU statistics with iostat(1M):

# iostat 1
   RF                RK                RP                  PERCENT
   tpm  msps  mspt   tpm  msps  mspt   tpm  msps  mspt  user  nice systm  idle
  1057   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0  1178  -0.6   0.7  0.16  4.99  0.34 94.51
     0   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0  0.00 97.83  2.17  0.00
106980   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0130440  -0.6   0.6 15.00 35.00 50.00  0.00
 56580   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0 67680  -0.6   0.6 10.00 63.33 26.67  0.00
 89374   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0108209  -0.6   0.6 17.39  2.90 79.71  0.00
 60916   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0 74179  -0.6   0.6 14.91 36.84 48.25  0.00
 15789   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0 17937  -0.6   0.6 12.28 63.16 24.56  0.00
  1020   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0  1020  -0.6   0.6  0.00100.00  0.00  0.00
     0   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0  0.00100.00  0.00  0.00
     0   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0     0   0.0   0.0  0.00100.00  0.00  0.00
[...]

... and time percentages:

# iostat -i 1
[...]
  0.00 idle
 15.32 user
 37.90 nice
 46.77 system
  0.00 IO wait
  1.61 IO active
  1.61 RF active
  0.00 RK active
  0.00 RP active
[...]

What boot looks like:

sim> run 0
Boot
: hp(0,0)unix
mem = 176448
#

What panics look like:

ka6 = 2317
aps = 141670
pc = 10067 ps = 144124
trap type 0
panic: trap

Acknowledgements

Resources used:

Note that I've never used or even seen a PDP in real life (they were before my time). For me, this is an historical fascination explored through old manuals and source code. This checklist is based on these materials, with testing and experimentation in a simulator (including trying to debug kernel panics with adb(1), as well as configurations problems with simh). Please reference back to this post if you find it useful, and please leave a comment if you can fill in more details.


Last updated: 07-Oct-2013