System Administration Commands                            sar(1M)



NAME
     sar, sa1, sa2, sadc - system activity report package

SYNOPSIS
     /usr/lib/sa/sadc [t n] [ofile]


     /usr/lib/sa/sa1 [t n]


     /usr/lib/sa/sa2 [-aAbcdgkmpqruvwy] [-e time] [-f filename]
          [-i sec] [-s time]


DESCRIPTION
     System activity data can be accessed at the special  request
     of  a  user  (see  sar(1))  and  automatically, on a routine
     basis, as described  here.  The  operating  system  contains
     several  counters  that  are  incremented  as various system
     actions occur. These include counters for  CPU  utilization,
     buffer  usage,  disk  and  tape  I/O  activity,  TY  device
     activity, switching and system-call  activity,  file-access,
     queue  activity,  inter-process  communications, and paging.
     For more general system statistics, use iostat(1M),  sar(1),
     or vmstat(1M).


     sadc and two shell procedures, sa1 and sa2, are used to sam-
     ple, save, and process this data.


     sadc, the data collector, samples system data n times,  with
     an  interval  of  t  seconds  between samples, and writes in
     binary format to ofile or to standard output.  The  sampling
     interval  t should be greater than 5 seconds; otherwise, the
     activity of sadc itself may affect the sample. If  t  and  n
     are  omitted, a special record is written. This facility can
     be used at system boot time, when booting  to  a  multi-user
     state,  to  mark the time at which the counters restart from
     zero.  For  example,  when  accounting   is   enabled,   the
     svc:/system/sar:default  service  writes the restart mark to
     the daily data file using the command entry:

       su sys -c "/usr/lib/sa/sadc /var/adm/sa/sa'date ]%d'"




     The shell script sa1, a variant of sadc, is used to  collect
     and store data in the binary file /var/adm/sa/sadd, where dd
     is the current day. The arguments t and n cause  records  to
     be  written  n times at an interval of t seconds, or once if



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System Administration Commands                            sar(1M)



     omitted.       The        following        entries        in
     /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sys  will  produce records every 20
     minutes during working hours and hourly otherwise:

       0 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
       20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1




     See crontab(1) for details.


     The shell script sa2, a  variant  of  sar,  writes  a  daily
     report  in  the file /var/adm/sa/sardd. See the OPTIONS sec-
     tion in sar(1) for an explanation of  the  various  options.
     The  following  entry  in  /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sys will
     report important activities hourly during the working day:

       5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2 -s 8:00 -e 18:01 -i 1200 -A



FILES
     /tmp/sa.adrfl

         address file


     /var/adm/sa/sadd

         Daily data file


     /var/adm/sa/sardd

         Daily report file


     /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sys




ATRIBUTES
     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:








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System Administration Commands                            sar(1M)



     
           ATRIBUTE TYPE               ATRIBUTE VALUE       
    
     Availability                 SUNWaccu                    
    


SEE ALSO
     crontab(1), sag(1), sar(1), svcs(1),  timex(1),  iostat(1M),
     svcadm(1M), vmstat(1M), attributes(5), smf(5)


NOTES
     The sar service is managed by the service management  facil-
     ity, smf(5), under the service identifier:

       svc:/system/sar




     Administrative actions on this service,  such  as  enabling,
     disabling,  or  requesting  restart,  can be performed using
     svcadm(1M). The service's status can be  queried  using  the
     svcs(1) command.






























SunOS 5.11          Last change: 20 Aug 2004                    3