Metadata Fields

When appearing in machine-parsable formats, numeric statistics have these self-describing metadata fields:

■	units – What the numbers mean. Example values:

■	packets, bytes, KB for kilobytes, us for microseconds, and others as appropriate.

■	type – Indicates how to interpret the number.

■	static – The value is for configuration and is not expected to change frequently. For instance: a reservation, or the maximum CPU speed.

■	instant – Instantaneous measurement of the current value. Expected to go up or down over time. For instance: current memory usage.

■	accumulate – Continuous sum of all data over time. Non-decreasing. The statistics consumer must compute the difference between two values at different times and convert it into a rate. For instance: CPU time used, bytes sent, memory swapped in.

Four examples below show the same statistic, encoded in different formats:

Example: Text

$ vmware-toolbox-cmd stat raw text vnet 00:0c:29:1e:23:f3

size.tx = 38137

num.rx = 10920

size.rx = 1312789

reservation = 0

limit = -1

 

Example: YAML

$ vmware-toolbox-cmd stat raw yaml vnet 00:0c:29:1e:23:f3

num.tx:

type: accumulate

units: packets

value: 209

size.tx:

type: accumulate

units: bytes

value: 38137

num.rx:

type: accumulate

units: packets

value: 10920

size.rx:

type: accumulate

units: bytes

value: 1312789

reservation:

type: static

units: MBps

value: 0

limit:

type: static

units: MBps

value: -1

 

Example: XML (formatted here for presentation)

$ vmware-toolbox-cmd stat raw xml vnet 00:0c:29:1e:23:f3

<metrics session="4004861987670969122">

<metric name="num.tx" type="accumulate" units="packets">209</metric>

<metric name="size.tx" type="accumulate" units="bytes">38137</metric>

<metric name="num.rx" type="accumulate" units="packets">10992</metric>

<metric name="size.rx" type="accumulate" units="bytes">1322161</metric>

<metric name="reservation" type="static" units="MBps">0</metric>

<metric name="limit" type="static" units="MBps">-1</metric>

</metrics>

 

Example: JSON (formatted here for presentation)

$ vmware-toolbox-cmd stat raw json vnet 00:0c:29:1e:23:f3

{"num.tx":{"type":"accumulate","units":"packets","value":209},

 "size.tx":{"type":"accumulate","units":"bytes","value":38137},

 "num.rx":{"type":"accumulate","units":"packets","value":11068},

 "size.rx":{"type":"accumulate","units":"bytes","value":1331791},

 "reservation":{"type":"static","units":"MBps","value":0},

 "limit":{"type":"static","units":"MBps","value":-1}}