vmstat provides a counter cs for context switch. As this explains, the context switch can be from one process to another , kernel to user or due to a interrupt being fired. Does the cs give a total of this?If so, is there a way I can get an individual output
What kind of context switch is counted in the cs parameter in the output of vmstat command
vmstat
Best Answer
Vmstat cs column is displaying, at least on Solaris, voluntary context switches, i.e. those happening when a process (thread really) is releasing the CPU because it has nothing else to do with it, for example waiting for some external event like a pending I/O to finish.
If you want to display involuntary context switches, you can use the mpstat command an look at its icsw column. Here are displayed context switches due to a process being interrupted/preempted because something with a bigger priority requires the CPU.