SLABTOP(1)                       User Commands                      SLABTOP(1)



NAME
       slabtop - display kernel slab cache information in real time

SYNOPSIS
       slabtop [options]

DESCRIPTION
       slabtop  displays  detailed kernel slab cache information in real time.
       It displays a listing of the top caches sorted by  one  of  the  listed
       sort  criteria.   It also displays a statistics header filled with slab
       layer information.

OPTIONS
       Normal invocation of slabtop does not require any options.  The  behav-
       ior,  however,  can be fine-tuned by specifying one or more of the fol-
       lowing flags:

       -d, --delay=N
              Refresh the display every n in  seconds.   By  default,  slabtop
              refreshes the display every three seconds.  To exit the program,
              hit q.

       -s, --sort=S
              Sort by S, where S is one of the sort criteria.

       -o, --once
              Display the output once and then exit.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display usage information and exit.

SORT CRITERIA
       The following are valid sort criteria used to sort the individual  slab
       caches and thereby determine what are the "top" slab caches to display.
       The default sort criteria is to sort by the number of objects ("o").

       The sort criteria can also be  changed  while  slabtop  is  running  by
       pressing the associated character.

       character   description                header
       a           number of active objects   ACTIVE
       b           objects per slab           OBJ/SLAB
       c           cache size                 CACHE SIZE
       l           number of slabs            SLABS
       v           number of active slabs     N/A
       n           name                       NAME
       o           number of objects          OBJS
       p           pages per slab             N/A
       s           object size                OBJ SIZE
       u           cache utilization          USE

COMMANDS
       slabtop  accepts  keyboard commands from the user during use.  The fol-
       lowing are supported.  In the case of letters, both cases are accepted.

       Each of the valid sort characters are also accepted, to change the sort
       routine. See the section SORT CRITERIA.

       <SPACEBAR>
              Refresh the screen.

       Q      Quit the program.

FILES
       /proc/slabinfo
              slab information

SEE ALSO
       free(1), ps(1), top(1), vmstat(8)

NOTES
       Currently, slabtop requires a 2.4 or later kernel (specifically, a ver-
       sion 1.1 or later /proc/slabinfo).  Kernel 2.2 should be  supported  in
       the future.

       The  slabtop  statistic  header is tracking how many bytes of slabs are
       being used and it not a measure of physical memory.  The  'Slab'  field
       in the /proc/meminfo file is tracking information about used slab phys-
       ical memory.

AUTHORS
       Written by Chris Rivera and Robert Love.

       slabtop was inspired by Martin Bligh's perl script, vmtop.

REPORTING BUGS
       Please send bug reports to <procps@freelists.org>



procps-ng                          June 2011                        SLABTOP(1)
