As promised, here is a file to add to the Documentation/ directory which
describes the disk statistics fields.
Rick
diff -ruN linux-2.5.69/Documentation/iostats.txt linux-2.5.69-A/Documentation/iostats.txt
--- linux-2.5.69/Documentation/iostats.txt Wed Dec 31 16:00:00 1969
+++ linux-2.5.69-A/Documentation/iostats.txt Mon May 19 13:32:48 2003
@@ -0,0 +1,131 @@
+I/O statistics fields
+---------------
+
+Last modified 5/15/03
+
+In 2.4.20 (and some versions before, with patches), and 2.5.45,
+more extensive disk statistics were introduced to help measure disk
+activity. Tools such as sar and iostat typically interpret these and do
+the work for you, but in case you are interested in creating your own
+tools, the fields are explained here.
+
+In most versions of the 2.4 patch, the information is found as additional
+fields in /proc/partitions. In 2.5, the same information is found
+within the sysfs file system, which must be mounted in order to obtain
+the information. Throughout this document we'll assume that sysfs is
+mounted on /sys, although of course it may be mounted anywhere.
+
+Here are examples of these two different formats:
+
+2.4:
+ 3 0 39082680 hda 446216 784926 9550688 4382310 424847 312726 5922052 19310380 0 3376340 23705160
+ 3 1 9221278 hda1 35486 0 35496 38030 0 0 0 0 0 38030 38030
+
+
+2.5:
+ 446216 784926 9550688 4382310 424847 312726 5922052 19310380 0 3376340 23705160
+ 35486 38030 38030 38030
+
+On 2.4 you might execute "grep 'hda ' /proc/partitions". On 2.5, you
+would instead "cat /sys/block/hda/stat".
+
+In 2.4, the statistics fields are those after the device name. In
+the above example, the first field of statistics would be 446216.
+By contrast, in 2.5 if you look at /sys/block/hda/stat, you'll find
+just the eleven fields, beginning with 446216. Each of these formats
+have eleven fields of statistics, each meaning exactly the same things.
+All fields except field 9 are cumulative since boot. Field 9 should
+go to zero as I/Os complete; all others only increase. Yes, these are
+32 bit unsigned numbers, and on a very busy or long-lived system they
+may wrap. Applications should be prepared to deal with that; unless
+your observations are measured in large numbers of minutes or hours,
+they should not wrap twice before you notice them.
+
+Each set of stats only applies to the indicated device; if you want
+system-wide stats you'll have to find all the devices and sum them all up.
+
+Field 1 -- # of reads issued
+ This is the total number of reads completed successfully.
+Field 2 -- # of reads merged, field 6 -- # of writes merged
+ Reads and writes which are adjacent to each other may be merged for
+ efficiency. Thus two 4K reads may become one 8K read before it is
+ ultimately handed to the disk, and so it will be counted (and queued)
+ as only one I/O. This field lets you know how often this was done.
+Field 3 -- # of sectors read
+ This is the total number of sectors read successfully.
+Field 4 -- # of milliseconds spent reading
+ This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all reads (as
+ measured from __make_request() to end_that_request_last()).
+Field 5 -- # of writes completed
+ This is the total number of writes completed successfully.
+Field 7 -- # of sectors written
+ This is the total number of sectors written successfully.
+Field 8 -- # of milliseconds spent writing
+ This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all writes (as
+ measured from __make_request() to end_that_request_last()).
+Field 9 -- # of I/Os currently in progress
+ The only field that should go to zero. Incremented as requests are
+ given to appropriate request_queue_t and decremented as they finish.
+Field 10 -- # of milliseconds spent doing I/Os
+ This field is increases so long as field 9 is nonzero.
+Field 11 -- weighted # of milliseconds spent doing I/Os
+ This field is incremented at each I/O start, I/O completion, I/O
+ merge, or read of these stats by the number of I/Os in progress
+ (field 9) times the number of milliseconds spent doing I/O since the
+ last update of this field. This can provide an easy measure of both
+ I/O completion time and the backlog that may be accumulating.
+
+
+To avoid introducing performance bottlenecks, no locks are held while
+modifying these counters. This implies that minor inaccuracies may be
+introduced when changes collide, so (for instance) adding up all the
+read I/Os issued per partition should equal those made to the disks
+... but due to the lack of locking it may only be very close.
+
+In release 2.5.65 these counters were made per-cpu, which made the lack
+of locking almost a non-issue. When the statistics are read, the per-cpu
+counters are summed (possibly overflowing the unsigned 32-bit variable
+they are summed to) and the result given to the user. There is no
+convenient user interface for accessing the per-cpu counters themselves.
+
+Disks vs Partitions
+-------------------
+
+There were significant changes between 2.4 and 2.5 in the I/O subsystem.
+As a result, some statistic information disappeared. The translation from
+a disk address relative to a partition to the disk address relative to
+the host disk happens much earlier. All merges and timings now happen
+at the disk level rather than at both the disk and partition level
+as in 2.4. Consequently, you'll see a different statistics output on
+2.5 for partitions from that for disks. There are only *four* fields
+available for partitions on 2.5 machines. This is reflected in the
+example above. To access the statistics for (for example) hda1, you
+would look at the file /sys/block/hda/hda1/stat.
+
+Field 1 -- # of reads issued
+ This is the total number of reads issued to this partition.
+Field 2 -- # of sectors read
+ This is the total number of sectors requested to be read from this
+ partition.
+Field 3 -- # of reads issued
+ This is the total number of writes issued to this partition.
+Field 4 -- # of sectors read
+ This is the total number of sectors requested to be written to
+ this partition.
+
+Note that since the address is translated to a disk-relative one, and no
+record of the partition-relative address is kept, the subsequent success
+or failure of the read cannot be attributed to the partition. In other
+words, the number of reads for partitions is counted slightly before time
+of queuing for partitions, and at completion for whole disks. This is
+a subtle distinction that is probably uninteresting for most cases.
+
+Additional notes
+----------------
+
+In 2.5, sysfs is not mounted by default. Here's the line you'll want
+to add to your /etc/fstab:
+
+none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
+
+-- ricklind@us.ibm.com
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