It's unclear exactly what the M in mpstat
means. NOTE: mpstat
is part of the sysstat package and so is part of a family of *stat tools:
$ rpm -ql sysstat | grep /bin/
/usr/bin/cifsiostat
/usr/bin/iostat
/usr/bin/mpstat
/usr/bin/nfsiostat-sysstat
/usr/bin/pidstat
/usr/bin/sadf
/usr/bin/sar
/usr/bin/tapestat
It's likely the case that the M stands for one of the following:
- multi-processor
- multiple-processors
- microprocessor
- machine
- monitor
Given the top of the mpstat.c
source code describes it as this:
- mpstat: per-processor statistics
I'd be inclined to go with the multiple. This seems to be consistent with the source code if you glance through it, given it goes out of its way to deal with both single (UP) and multiple CPUs (SMP).
Example comments from code:
- Structures used to save CPU and NUMA nodes CPU stats
- Compute CPU "all" as sum of all individual CPU (on SMP machines and look for offline CPU.
- Read total number of interrupts received among all CPU.
- What is the highest processor number on this machine?
NOTE: One thing I find curious with this tool, is that if the M is meant to represent multi*, this word never actually appears in the source code, mpstat.c
.
References