ESXTOP and Resxtop commands ( need help for -n)

[rushad61]

Hi All

I am studying for my VCAP DCA and I still cannot figure out what the -n command means and how to work out the value. I know it stands for "Number of iterations. resxtop (or esxtop) collects and saves statistics this number of times, and then exits." according to the documenation but I cannot work out how to derive the number. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am really lost.

Example : I want to use esxtop to collect data for 2 minutes at 3-second intervals and output file

I would run esxtop -b -d 3 -n ? >> test.csv

-b is batch mode

-d sets the delay in seconds

but  i do not know what to put in -n

Another example: I want to use esxtop to collect data for 12 hours at 5-minutes intervals output file

I would run esxtop -b -d 300 -n ? >> test1.csv

is there a formula for n (time x 60) or something like

Thank you for your comments in advance

[scott28tt]

Here's a good article on ESXTOP: ESXTOP - Yellow Bricks

[rushad61]

Hi Scott28tt

I have read Duncan Eppings blog but I still cannot determine how to calculate the -n value when you have a specific time length.

He states

esxtop -b -d 2 -n 100 > esxtopcapture.csv

Where “-b” stands for batch mode, “-d 2″ is a delay of 2 seconds and “-n 100″ are 100 iterations. In this specific case esxtop will log all metrics for 200 seconds. If you want to record all metrics make sure to add “-a” to your string.

So in my example would it be esxtop -b -d 3 -n 40 >> test.csv   (120÷3=40)

And another example esxtop -b -d 300 -n 144 >> test1.csv  ((12*60*60)÷300=144

Can somone confirm if this is correct  n = (number in seconds for durations ÷ interval in seconds)

[firestartah · Accepted solution]

-n is just the number of iterations. That is it. If you want one million iterations and a delay of 5 then there will be 5 million captures of the values from the r/esxtop but -n is literally just the number of iterations