Introduction to Sysstat
The Sysstat package contains
utilities to monitor system performance and usage activity.
Sysstat contains the sar utility, common to many
commercial Unixes, and tools you can schedule via cron to collect
and historize performance and activity data.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS 12.4
platform.
Package Information
Installation of Sysstat
Install Sysstat by running the
following commands:
sa_lib_dir=/usr/lib/sa \
sa_dir=/var/log/sa \
conf_dir=/etc/sysstat \
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--disable-file-attr &&
make
This package does not come with a working test suite.
Now, as the root user:
make install
Install the systemd units and timers by running the following
commands as the root user:
install -v -m644 sysstat.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat.service &&
install -v -m644 cron/sysstat-collect.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-collect.service &&
install -v -m644 cron/sysstat-collect.timer /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-collect.timer &&
install -v -m644 cron/sysstat-rotate.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-rotate.service &&
install -v -m644 cron/sysstat-rotate.timer /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-rotate.timer &&
install -v -m644 cron/sysstat-summary.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-summary.service &&
install -v -m644 cron/sysstat-summary.timer /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-summary.timer
Fix one of the systemd units by running the following command as
the root user:
sed -i "/^Also=/d" /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat.service
Command Explanations
sa_lib_dir: This environment variable
specifies the location of the package-specific library directory.
sa_dir: This environment variable
specifies the location of the directory containing the data files.
conf_dir: This environment variable
specifies the location of the system configuration directory.
--disable-file-attr: Do not
set attributes on files being installed. This parameter causes the
installation to ignore the man group variable resulting in the man
files having root: root ownership.
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Note
Run ./configure
--help to see other influential environment
variables you can pass to configure. You may want to use
the history and compressafter variables to customize the amount of
data files kept on the system.
Configuring Sysstat
Config Files
/etc/sysconfig/sysstat and
/etc/sysconfig/sysstat.ioconf
System Startup
Information
At system startup, a LINUX RESTART message must be inserted in
the daily data file to reinitialize the kernel counters. This can
be automated by enabling the previously installed systemd unit by
running the following command as the root user:
systemctl enable sysstat
In addition to placing the LINUX RESTART message into the daily
data file, there are systemd timers installed which will
automatically capture the required history information for the
sar command.