Re: 'A' web server takes another "time out"

If you're capturing regular sar data, (With the sa1/sa2 scripts) this could provide a lot of useful information beyond what top provides. (You can profile the performance on a system quite extensively with good sar output). It would be helpful if you could make the sar data from the last week or so available for download. (If available)

The files are usually located in /var/adm/sa and should be readable from userland. I've found that FreeBSD or Linux boxes don't usually have sar enabled, (unlike a lot of commercial *NIXes) but it's worth a shot. Just tar 'em up and put them somewhere for download.

If the data is indeed available but you don't feel comfortable sharing it, there are some utilities available to analyse the data directly, such as:

sarcheck

Sadly it requires a commercial license and I can't think of any cost-free alternatives. Readers please chime in if you know of any similar analysis utilities.

Hoping to help,

m.att

Comment on Re: 'A' web server takes another "time out"

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Re^2: 'A' web server takes another "time out" (sar) by tye (Sage) on May 04, 2006 at 06:33 UTC
Yes, 'sar' was what I first reached for, realizing that it is far better to compactly collect all of the performance data so that after the fact you can view slices of it this way and that to try to figure out what the matter is... `$ sar ksh: sar: not found $ ls -l /var/adm ls: adm: Permission denied $ ls -ld /var/adm drwxr-x--- 3 root wheel 512 Jan 22 2001 /var/adm/ $` [download] And I'm certainly not 'root' nor in 'wheel'. (: - tye	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: 'A' web server takes another "time out" (sar) by m.att (Pilgrim) on May 04, 2006 at 18:24 UTC
Well, that's a bust.. too bad. How about capturing some regular snapshots with `vmstat`? Maybe `vmstat 60` and a `vmstat -d 60` piped to a file for a few days (or at least a good bit of time before, during and after the event in question). (These commands may require different syntax if you're on FreeBSD, which I can't test with -- we're basically looking for VM stuff and IO/disk stuff... also see `iostat`) Maybe also throw in a few vmstat -s's for good measure. This would at least provide a little bit more detail around swap in/out and IO. m.att	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: 'A' web server takes another "time out" (sar) by tye (Sage) on May 04, 2006 at 18:46 UTC
But I think that'd mostly be less information than I'm currently getting from 'top'. In any case, it doesn't give me the main system data I'm now wanting: which process(es) is creating the flood of new 'httpd's. I tell you, Win32's PerfMon sure looks great in comparison to this hacking.... - tye	[reply]