topic Re: Using sar. How to stop it in Operating System - HP-UX

Using sar. How to stop it

Lane Frazier — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 17:58:50 GMT

Hello,

I am wanting to gather a little performance information on my HP-UX 11.0 system. Just want to get some general cpu performance info.

I want to use sar -u -f /tmp/sar.data

Here's the question...I have not seen any mention of how to use the sar command to stop the system activity reporter?

I only want to monitor for a few days and then stop it. I don't want it to run forever and waste disk space and machine resources etc.

How do I handle this?

Thanks for the help

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:01:25 GMT

Lane:

Check the man pages, in particular the -s and -e options.

...JRF...

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Antoanetta Naghiu — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:03:06 GMT

-e option is for end monitoring

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:04:09 GMT

Lane:

Check the man pages, in particular the -s and -e options.

...JRF...

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Victor BERRIDGE — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:05:36 GMT

if you just want some little information..
why not put in a cron

0 * * * * sar 1 5 >/tmp/sar.log

That should do what you want no?

Best regards
Victor

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Rick Garland — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:16:27 GMT

Can use the /usr/adm/sa/sa1 as a cron entry. Comment the cron entry to stop.
As an example from my cron:
0 7-18 * * 1-5 /usr/lbin/sa/sa1 1200 3

Then I have a script as follows that will convert the binary format to readable format and it is attached.

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Cheryl Griffin — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:17:51 GMT

Lane,

Look at the man page for sa1 and you will see more about the ways to automate sar data.

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Kofi ARTHIABAH — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:19:18 GMT

Lane:

If you set up sar as advised in the man pages, it will only maintain a maximum of 31 days worth (/var/adm/sa/sa01...31) so do not worry about collecting forever. If however within the day you want to limit the hours to collect it for, the modify the cron entry accordingly.

man sar
man sa1

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Rick Garland — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:20:41 GMT

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Anthony deRito — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:40:21 GMT

Lane, you want to save space and still have all the sar data you need? Use the /usr/lbin/sa/sadc command instead of sar. This will create much smaller binary files. Run the command:

/usr/lbin/sa/sadc 10 300 [filename]

This will create a binary file called [filename].

Extract the data with the following command(s):

sar -u -f [filename]
or
sar -b -f [filename]
or
sar -d -f [filename]
or
Use any other sar option.

You have all the sar data you need in one compact binary file. You can put the sadc command in crontab too!

Tony

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Anthony deRito — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:43:30 GMT

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Anthony deRito — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:46:17 GMT

Lane, you want to save space and still have all the sar data you need? Use the /usr/lbin/sa/sadc command instead of sar. This will create much smaller binary files. Run the command:

/usr/lbin/sa/sadc 10 300 [filename]

This will create a binary file called [filename].
Extract the data with the following command(s):

sar -u -f [filename]
or
sar -b -f [filename]
or
sar -d -f [filename]
or
...use any other sar option.

You have all the sar data you need in one compact binary file. You can put the sadc command in crontab too!

Tony

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Anthony Goonetilleke — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 03:46:24 GMT

Here is a simple perl script to get a snapshot of CPU/DISK/MEMORY

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
$DATE=`date`;
chop($DATE);
@STATS=`/usr/bin/sar -uM 1 5`;
@STATS2=`/usr/bin/iostat 2 5`;
@STATS3=`/usr/sbin/swapinfo -mt`;
print ("START $DATE");
print "-----CPU STATS-----";
print "@STATSn";
print "-----DISK STATS-----";
print "@STATS2n";
print "-----MEMORY STATS-----";
print "@STATS3n";
print ("END $DATEnn*****");

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Lane Frazier — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:23:56 GMT

hello again,

Rick

I've put 0 7-18 * * 1-5 /usr/lbin/sa/sa1 1200 3 in my cronfile

I get the following error message back when it executes:

can't create/open data file no such file or directory

I have sa1 sa2 and sadc in the /usr/lbin/sa directory...What's the problem

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Rick Garland — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:29:11 GMT

Do you have the directory /var/adm/sa?

This is where the sa files will go.

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Rick Garland — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:34:39 GMT

Under the /var/adm/sa directory, the data files sa$DATE will be placed. Using the sa2 command (in the script I attached) will issue the various options and convert to text output.

The 1200 tag on the end of the cron says to get the data every 20 min. Again, if you want to stop the collection, you can comment or remove from the crontab file.

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Rick Garland — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:36:27 GMT

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Lane Frazier — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:37:55 GMT

Rick,

There is no /var/adm/sa directory....I only have /var/adm

Do I need to create the sa subdirectory?

Thanks for your help.

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Rick Garland — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:43:27 GMT

Yes, create the sa directory under the /var/adm.

Perms that I have for the sa directory are:
755 root sys

This will allow you to collect the data.

Re: Using sar. How to stop it

Lane Frazier — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 17:35:02 GMT

Ok Rick,

Looks like I'm getting some data now...I have a sa17

how does one make use of your script? just copy the sa17 file to /var/adm/sa/perf

and run your script? haven't quite figured out the script you provided yet. What's with the directory creation at the beginning of the script? just a way of organizing the data by month day year?

Also does the script produce a report in a text file or does it display on the screen?

Thanks again