Chapter 2. Resource Monitoring

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2.6. Additional Resources

This section includes various resources that can be used to learn more about resource monitoring and

the Red Hat Linux specific subject matter discussed in this chapter.

2.6.1. Installed Documentation

The following resources are installed in the course of a typical Red Hat Linux installation, and can

help you learn more about the subject matter discussed in this chapter.

  free(1)

man page   Displays free and used memory statistics.

  top(1)

man page   Displays CPU utilization and process level statistics.

  watch(1)

man page   Periodically executes the specified program, displaying fullscreen output.

GNOME System Monitor Help menu entry   Graphically displays process, CPU, memory, and

disk space utilization statistics.

  vmstat(8)

man page   Displays a concise overview of process, memory, swap, I/O, system, and

CPU utilization.

  iostat(1)

man page   Displays CPU and I/O statistics.

  mpstat(1)

man page   Displays individual CPU statistics on multiprocessor systems.

  sadc(8)

man page   Collects system utilization data.

  sa1(8)

man page   A script that runs

sadc

periodically.

  sar(1)

man page   Produces system resource utilization reports.

  sa2(8)

man page   Produces daily system resource utilization report files.

  nice(1)

man page   Changes process scheduling priority.

2.6.2. Useful Websites

http://linuxperf.nl.linux.org/   The Linux Performance Tuning homepage. Provides a good in 

troductory overview of resource monitoring for performance tuning purposes. The mailing list,

unfortunately, appears to have been overrun by spam and is no longer used.

http://people.redhat.com/alikins/system_tuning.html   System Tuning Info for Linux Servers. A

stream of consciousness approach to performance tuning and resource monitoring for servers.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2396   Performance Monitoring Tools for Linux.

This Linux Journal page is geared more toward the administrator interested in writing a customized

performance graphing solution. Written several years ago, some of the details may no longer apply,

but the overall concept and execution are sound.

2.6.3. Related Books

The following books discuss various issues related to resource monitoring, and are good resources for

Red Hat Linux system administrators:

The Red Hat Linux Customization Guide; Red Hat, Inc.   Includes a chapter on many of the

resource monitoring tools described here.