Monitoring with the Sysstat tool collection

Process Watchers

© lydichka, Fotolia

© lydichka, Fotolia

Article from Issue 95/2008
Author(s): , Author(s):

The Sysstat tools, featuring sar, iostat, mpstat, and pidstat, acquire system parameters and calculate statistics.

Server performance is down or non-existent. To look for clues, you check the logfiles, take a quick look at the /proc directory, and run tools such as Vmstat or Top, but to no avail: time to launch the Sysstat collection [1]. Sysstat is a group of simple Linux command-line tools for performance analysis and monitoring. According to the Sysstat project, the toolset "… contains various utilities common to many commercial Unixes, and tools you can schedule via cron to collect and historize performance and activity data."

The Sysstat set collects system information, stores it for a period of time, and calculates mean values, letting you query individual system parameters at specific times for more flexible troubleshooting. The tools work well with cron so that you can take readings of system performance at predefined intervals for a flexible, customizable approach to data collection. The Sysstat project defines the collection as follows:

  • iostat – reports input/output statistics for devices, partitions, and network filesystems.
  • mpstat – monitors processor statistics.
  • pidstat – reports on system processes.
  • sar and a supporting cast of related utilities – monitor, collect, and report on system activities related to CPU, memory, interrupts, interfaces, kernel tables, and other factors.

[...]

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