MAC OS® X UNIX® Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for the Mac OS® X

Chapter 10. Managing the System

In This Chapter

• Checking memory use with top and vmstat

• Viewing CPU usage with iostat, systat, and top

• Monitoring storage devices with iostat and lsof

• Working with dates/time using date, cal, and NTP

• Shutting down the system with reboot, halt, and shutdown

Without careful management, the demands on your Mac OS X system can sometimes exceed the resources you have available. Being able to monitor your system's activities (memory, CPU, and device usage) over time can help you ensure that your machine has enough resources to do what you require. Likewise, managing other aspects of your system, such as the device drivers it uses and how the boot process works, can help avoid performance problems and system failures.

This chapter is divided into several sections that relate to ways of managing your Mac OS X system. The first section can help you monitor the resources (processing power, devices, and memory) on your system. The next section describes how to check and set your system clock. Descriptions of the boot process and subsequent run levels follow. The last sections describe how to work with the kernel and related device drivers, as well as how to view information about your computer's hardware components.

Monitoring Resources

FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and other UNIX-like systems do a wonderful job of keeping track of what they do, and Mac OS X is no different. If you care to look, you can find a lot of information about how your CPU, hard disks, virtual memory, ...