Getting detailed information about a counter

Getting detailed information about a counter helps you understand and process the information you get from a stats command.

Step

1. Enter the following command: stats explain counters object_name [counter_name]
   • object_name is the name of the object the counter is associated with.
   • counter_name is the name of the counter you want more details about. If counter_name is omitted, information about all counters on the specified object is returned.

   The following fields are returned for every specified counter:

   • Name
   • Description
   • Properties
     The Properties field describes the type of information that is returned by this counter. Properties include the following types:

     • percent for values that are a percentage value, such as cpu_busy
     • rate for values that describe a value per time, such as disk_data_read
     • average for values that return an average, such as write_latency
     • raw for simple values that have no type, such as num_processors
   • Unit
     The Unit field describes how value returned by this counter can be interpreted. The Unit field can be in one of the following groups of values:

     • percent for counters with a Properties of percent
     • The unit per time period for counters with a Properties of rate, such as kb_per_sec or per_sec.
     • The time unit for counters that return timing values, such as write_latency

toaster> stats explain counters system cpu_busy
Counters for object name: system
Name: cpu_busy
Description: Percentage of time one or more processors is busy in the system
Properties: percent
Unit: percent