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Oracle Solaris Administration: Common Tasks     Oracle Solaris 11 Information Library
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Document Information

About This Book

1.  Locating Information About Oracle Solaris Commands

2.  Managing User Accounts and Groups (Overview)

3.  Managing User Accounts and Groups (Tasks)

4.  Booting and Shutting Down an Oracle Solaris System

5.  Working With Oracle Configuration Manager

6.  Managing Services (Overview)

7.  Managing Services (Tasks)

8.  Using the Fault Manager

9.  Managing System Information (Tasks)

10.  Managing System Processes (Tasks)

11.  Monitoring System Performance (Tasks)

Where to Find System Performance Tasks

System Performance and System Resources

Processes and System Performance

About Monitoring System Performance

Monitoring Tools

Displaying System Performance Information (Task Map)

Displaying Virtual Memory Statistics (vmstat)

How to Display Virtual Memory Statistics (vmstat)

How to Display System Event Information (vmstat -s)

How to Display Swapping Statistics (vmstat -S)

How to Display Interrupts Per Device (vmstat -i)

Displaying Disk Utilization Information (iostat)

How to Display Disk Utilization Information (iostat)

How to Display Extended Disk Statistics (iostat -xtc)

Displaying Disk Space Statistics (df)

How to Display Disk Space Information (df -k)

Monitoring System Activities (Task Map)

Monitoring System Activities (sar)

How to Check File Access (sar -a)

How to Check Buffer Activity (sar -b)

How to Check System Call Statistics (sar -c)

How to Check Disk Activity (sar -d)

How to Check Page-Out and Memory (sar -g)

Checking Kernel Memory Allocation

How to Check Kernel Memory Allocation (sar -k)

How to Check Interprocess Communication (sar -m)

How to Check Page-In Activity (sar -p)

How to Check Queue Activity (sar -q)

How to Check Unused Memory (sar -r)

How to Check CPU Utilization (sar -u)

How to Check System Table Status (sar -v)

How to Check Swapping Activity (sar -w)

How to Check Terminal Activity (sar -y)

How to Check Overall System Performance (sar -A)

Collecting System Activity Data Automatically (sar)

Running the sadc Command When Booting

Running the sadc Command Periodically With the sa1 Script

Producing Reports With the sa2 Shell Script

Setting Up Automatic Data Collection (sar)

How to Set Up Automatic Data Collection

12.  Managing Software Packages (Tasks)

13.  Managing Disk Use (Tasks)

14.  Scheduling System Tasks (Tasks)

15.  Setting Up and Administering Printers by Using CUPS (Tasks)

16.  Managing the System Console, Terminal Devices, and Power Services (Tasks)

17.  Managing System Crash Information (Tasks)

18.  Managing Core Files (Tasks)

19.  Troubleshooting System and Software Problems (Tasks)

20.  Troubleshooting Miscellaneous System and Software Problems (Tasks)

Index

Collecting System Activity Data Automatically (sar)

Three commands are involved in the automatic collection of system activity data: sadc, sa1, and sa2.

The sadc data collection utility periodically collects data on system activity and saves the data in a file in binary format, one file for each 24-hour period. You can set up the sadc command to run periodically (usually once each hour), and whenever the system boots to multiuser mode. The data files are placed in the /var/adm/sa directory. Each file is named sadd, where dd is the current date. The format of the command is as follows:

/usr/lib/sa/sadc [t n] [ofile]

The command samples n times with an interval of t seconds, which should be greater than five seconds between samples. This command then writes to the binary ofile file, or to standard output.

Running the sadc Command When Booting

The sadc command should be run at system boot time to record the statistics from when the counters are reset to zero. To make sure that the sadc command is run at boot time, the svcadm enable system/sar:default command writes a record to the daily data file.

The command entry has the following format:

/usr/bin/su sys -c "/usr/lib/sa/sadc /var/adm/sa/sa`date +%d`"

Running the sadc Command Periodically With the sa1 Script

To generate periodic records, you need to run the sadc command regularly. The simplest way to do so is to uncomment the following lines in the /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sys file:

# 0 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
# 20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
# 5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2 -s 8:00 -e 18:01 -i 1200 -A

The sys crontab entries do the following:

You can change these defaults to meet your needs.

Producing Reports With the sa2 Shell Script

Another shell script, sa2, produces reports rather than binary data files. The sa2 command invokes the sar command and writes the ASCII output to a report file.

Setting Up Automatic Data Collection (sar)

The sar command can be used either to gather system activity data itself or to report what has been collected in the daily activity files that are created by the sadc command.

The sar command has the following formats:

sar [-aAbcdgkmpqruvwy] [-o file] t [n] 
sar [-aAbcdgkmpqruvwy] [-s time] [-e time] [-i sec] [-f file]

The following sar command samples cumulative activity counters in the operating system every t seconds, n times. The t should be five seconds or greater. Otherwise, the command itself might affect the sample. You must specify a time interval in which to take the samples. Otherwise, the command operates according to the second format. The default value of n is 1. The following example takes two samples separated by 10 seconds. If the -o option were specified, samples are saved in binary format.

$ sar -u 10 2

Other important information about the sar command includes the following:

The following table lists the sar options and their actions.

Table 11-5 Options for the sar Command

Option
Actions
-a
Checks file access operations
-b
Checks buffer activity
-c
Checks system calls
-d
Checks activity for each block device
-g
Checks page-out and memory freeing
-k
Checks kernel memory allocation
-m
Checks interprocess communication
-nv
Checks system table status
-p
Checks swap and dispatch activity
-q
Checks queue activity
-r
Checks unused memory
-u
Checks CPU utilization
-w
Checks swapping and switching volume
-y
Checks terminal activity
-A
Reports overall system performance, which is the same as entering all options.

Using no option is equivalent to calling the sar command with the -u option.

How to Set Up Automatic Data Collection

  1. Become the root role.
  2. Run the svcadm enable system/sar:default command.

    This version of the sadc command writes a special record that marks the time when the counters are reset to zero (boot time).

  3. Edit the /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sys crontab file.

    Note - Do not edit a crontab file directly. Instead, use the crontab -e command to make changes to an existing crontab file.


    # crontab -e sys
  4. Uncomment the following lines:
    0 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
    20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
    5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2 -s 8:00 -e 18:01 -i 1200 -A

    For more information, see the crontab(1) man page.