SAR (System Activity Reporter)

7. Display context switch per second (sar -w) in SAR (System Activity Reporter)

This reports the total number of processes created per second, and total number of context switches per second. “1 3″ reports for every 1 seconds a total of 3 times.

$ sar -w 1 3
Linux 2.6.18-194.el5PAE (dev-db)        03/26/2011      _i686_  (8 CPU)

08:32:24 AM    proc/s   cswch/s
08:32:25 AM      3.00     53.00
08:32:26 AM      4.00     61.39
08:32:27 AM      2.00     57.00

Following are few variations:

  • sar -w
  • sar -w 1 3
  • sar -w -f /var/log/sa/sa10

8. Reports run queue and load average (sar -q) in SAR (System Activity Reporter)

This reports the run queue size and load average of last 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes. “1 3″ reports for every 1 seconds a total of 3 times.

$ sar -q 1 3
Linux 2.6.18-194.el5PAE (dev-db)        03/26/2011      _i686_  (8 CPU)

06:28:53 AM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15   blocked
06:28:54 AM         0       230      2.00      3.00      5.00         0
06:28:55 AM         2       210      2.01      3.15      5.15         0
06:28:56 AM         2       230      2.12      3.12      5.12         0
Average:            3       230      3.12      3.12      5.12         0

Note: The “blocked” column displays the number of tasks that are currently blocked and waiting for I/O operation to complete.Following are few variations:

  • sar -q
  • sar -q 1 3
  • sar -q -f /var/log/sa/sa10

9. Report network statistics (sar -n) in SAR (System Activity Reporter)

This reports various network statistics. For example: number of packets received (transmitted) through the network card, statistics of packet failure etc.,. “1 3″ reports for every 1 seconds a total of 3 times.

sar -n KEYWORD

KEYWORD can be one of the following:

  • DEV – Displays network devices vital statistics for eth0, eth1, etc.,
  • EDEV – Display network device failure statistics
  • NFS – Displays NFS client activities
  • NFSD – Displays NFS server activities
  • SOCK – Displays sockets in use for IPv4
  • IP – Displays IPv4 network traffic
  • EIP – Displays IPv4 network errors
  • ICMP – Displays ICMPv4 network traffic
  • EICMP – Displays ICMPv4 network errors
  • TCP – Displays TCPv4 network traffic
  • ETCP – Displays TCPv4 network errors
  • UDP – Displays UDPv4 network traffic
  • SOCK6, IP6, EIP6, ICMP6, UDP6 are for IPv6
  • ALL – This displays all of the above information. The output will be very long.
$ sar -n DEV 1 1
Linux 2.6.18-194.el5PAE (dev-db)        03/26/2011      _i686_  (8 CPU)

01:11:13 PM     IFACE   rxpck/s   txpck/s   rxbyt/s   txbyt/s   rxcmp/s   txcmp/s  rxmcst/s
01:11:14 PM        lo      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00
01:11:14 PM      eth0    342.57    342.57  93923.76 141773.27      0.00      0.00      0.00
01:11:14 PM      eth1      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00

10. Report Sar (System Activity Reporter) Data Using Start Time (sar -s)

When you view historic sar data from the /var/log/sa/saXX file using “sar -f” option, it displays all the sar data for that specific day starting from 12:00 a.m for that day.Using “-s hh:mi:ss” option, you can specify the start time. For example, if you specify “sar -s 10:00:00″, it will display the sar data starting from 10 a.m (instead of starting from midnight) as shown below.You can combine -s option with other sar option.For example, to report the load average on 26th of this month starting from 10 a.m in the morning, combine the -q and -s option as shown below.

$ sar -q -f /var/log/sa/sa23 -s 10:00:01
Linux 2.6.18-194.el5PAE (dev-db)        03/26/2011      _i686_  (8 CPU)

10:00:01 AM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15   blocked
10:10:01 AM         0       127      2.00      3.00      5.00         0
10:20:01 AM         0       127      2.00      3.00      5.00         0
...
11:20:01 AM         0       127      5.00      3.00      3.00         0
12:00:01 PM         0       127      4.00      2.00      1.00         0

There is no option to limit the end-time. You just have to get creative and use head command as shown below.For example, starting from 10 a.m, if you want to see 7 entries, you have to pipe the above output to “head -n 10″.

$ sar -q -f /var/log/sa/sa23 -s 10:00:01 | head -n 10
Linux 2.6.18-194.el5PAE (dev-db)        03/26/2011      _i686_  (8 CPU)

10:00:01 AM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15   blocked
10:10:01 AM         0       127      2.00      3.00      5.00         0
10:20:01 AM         0       127      2.00      3.00      5.00         0
10:30:01 AM         0       127      3.00      5.00      2.00         0
10:40:01 AM         0       127      4.00      2.00      1.00         2
10:50:01 AM         0       127      3.00      5.00      5.00         0
11:00:01 AM         0       127      2.00      1.00      6.00         0
11:10:01 AM         0       127      1.00      3.00      7.00         2

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