topic Re: Linux sysstat and sar in Operating System - Linux

Linux sysstat and sar

Sundar_7 — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:51:29 GMT

As a newbie to Linux, I am already sick and tired of getting things to work in RHEL 4 rel 2. The latest fairytale is getting sadf and sar to work.

How on the GOD's green earth can you explain this ? or what am I missing ?

1)
# rpm -qa | grep -i sysstat
sysstat-5.0.5-1
# /usr/lib/sa/sadc 1 10 /tmp/sar_test

# sar -f /tmp/sar_test
Linux 2.6.9-22.ELsmp (qste5500) 08/17/2006

#

2) and this

# rpm -qa | grep -i sysstat
sysstat-7.0.0-1
#

# sar -f sar_file_created_with_sysstat5.x
Invalid system activity file: sar_file_created_with_sysstat5.x
#

TIA

Sundar.

Re: Linux sysstat and sar

Ivan Ferreira — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:06:48 GMT

Easy upgrade is not the best word to describe components upgrades in Linux. Binary compatible is not also.

As the error indicates, it looks that the new version of the sysstat package is not compatible with older versions, and you cannot read the old files.

See the FAQ here:

http://perso.orange.fr/sebastien.godard/faq.html#sar

The sar command complains with the following message:
Invalid system activity file: ...

The format of the daily data files created by the sar command you are now using is not compatible with the format of the files created by a previous version of sar.
The solution is easy: just log in as root and remove by hand all the files located in the /var/log/sa directory:
# rm /var/log/sa/sa??

Re: Linux sysstat and sar

Steven E. Protter — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:22:57 GMT

Shalom,

You may update the systems statistics package from Red Hat.

SEP