tegrastats

Monitor memory and processor usage on NVIDIA Jetson devices

TLDR

Repeatedly print system statistics

$ sudo tegrastats

Set a custom sampling interval in milliseconds

$ sudo tegrastats --interval [1000]

Write the output to a logfile

$ sudo tegrastats --logfile [filename]

Run tegrastats in the background and log to a file

$ sudo tegrastats --start --logfile [filename]

Stop a tegrastats process running in the background

$ sudo tegrastats --stop

Print verbose messages, including read-failure warnings

$ sudo tegrastats --verbose

SYNOPSIS

tegrastats [--interval millisec] [--logfile filename] [--start] [--stop] [--verbose]

tegrastats reports memory and processor usage for NVIDIA Jetson-based devices running Linux for Tegra (L4T). It prints a single status line at a fixed interval, summarizing RAM and swap usage, per-core CPU load and frequency, memory-controller and GPU (GR3D) utilization, on-die temperatures, and, on boards with the required power sensors, instantaneous and average power draw per rail.It is the standard lightweight tool for watching a Jetson under load, since the desktop nvidia-smi utility does not support Tegra integrated GPUs. The output is a compact, machine-parsable line, which makes tegrastats convenient for logging long-running benchmarks to a file for later analysis.tegrastats ships as part of the L4T BSP and is installed at /usr/bin/tegrastats by JetPack. Running it without sudo produces incomplete output, because reading some of the hardware counters requires root privileges.

PARAMETERS

--interval millisec

Sample and print statistics every millisec milliseconds. The default is 1000 (one second).

--logfile filename

Write output to filename instead of standard output.

--start

Run tegrastats as a background process. Combine with --logfile to keep logging while the terminal is free for other work.

--stop

Terminate any tegrastats process currently running in the background.

--verbose

Print additional diagnostic messages, such as warnings when a sensor read fails.

--help

Print a usage summary and exit.

OUTPUT FIELDS

RAM used/totalMB

Main memory used and total, followed by the largest free block (lfb) available.

SWAP used/totalMB

Swap used and total, with the amount cached.

CPU [load%@freq,...]

Per-core utilization percentage and clock frequency; an offline core is shown as off.

EMC_FREQ x%@freq

External memory controller (DRAM) utilization and frequency.

GR3D_FREQ x%@freq

GPU 3D engine utilization and frequency.

CPU@_x_C, GPU@_x_C, ...

Temperatures reported by the on-die thermal zones, in degrees Celsius.

VDD_IN _x_/_y_, ...

Power rails in milliwatts shown as instantaneous/average, on boards equipped with INA power monitors.

CAVEATS

Run with sudo; without root some counters cannot be read and the line is incomplete. Power readings are only available on boards that include the corresponding INA sensors, and the exact set of fields varies by Jetson module (Nano, TX2, Xavier, Orin) and L4T release. tegrastats is specific to Tegra SoCs and is not available on desktop NVIDIA GPUs.

HISTORY

tegrastats is part of NVIDIA's Linux for Tegra (L4T) board support package, distributed with the JetPack SDK for the Jetson product line. It has long been the recommended built-in way to monitor Jetson system load, and the popular third-party jtop (jetson-stats) tool parses and builds on its output.

RESOURCES

Homepage · Documentation