Automate Sampling with dimstat

The second chapter of the Solaris performance deals with a must have utility: dimSTAT. dimSTAT a freely available monitoring tool which will monitor entire data centers while you are gone fishing... 

dimSTAT is a tool for general and/or detailed performance analysis and monitoring of Solaris and Linux systems. dimSTAT is a monitoring framework that offers flight-recorder type functionality. A central site can monitor a number of nodes for performance data and store the results for easy displaying and post-processing.

You can download the software and documentation from: http://dimitrik.free.fr/

dimSTAT - Installation

dimSTAT installation is straight forward. Get hold of the latest distribution files and then untar them into a directory of your choice:

cd /tmp tar -xvf <path_to_dimstat>/dim_STAT-v81-sol86.tar

Then run the INSTALL.sh file with /bin/sh and follow the instructions:

root@soldevx> sh INSTALL.sh   =========================================== ** Starting dim_STAT Server INSTALLATION ** =========================================== HOSTNAME: soldevx IP: ::1 DOMAINE: Is it correct? (y/n): n ** Hostname [soldevx]: localhost ** IP addres [::1]: ** Domainname []: ** Domainname []: ** Domainname []: ** Domainname []: . ** ** ATTENTION! ** ** On your host You have to assign a USER/GROUP pair as owner ** of all dim_STAT modules (default: dim/dim) User: dim Group: dim Is it correct? (y/n): y ** ** WARNING!!! ** ** User dim (group dim) is not created on your host... ** You may do it now by yourself or let me do it during ** installation... **   May I create this USER/GROUP on your host? (y/n): y ====================================== ** dim_STAT Directory Configuration ** ====================================== ** WebX root directory (5MB): => /WebX => /opt/WebX => /etc/WebX   [/opt/WebX]:   ** HOME directory for dim_STAT staff [/apps]: /export/home/dimstat ** TEMP directory : /opt/WebX => HOME directory : /export/home/dimstat => TEMP directory : /tmp => HTTP Server Port : 80 => DataBase Server Port : 3306 => Default STAT-service Port : 5000 Is it correct? (y/n): y ** WARNING!!! ** ALL DATA WILL BE DELETED IN: /export/home/dimstat/* !!! ** AS WELL /WebX, /etc/WebX, /opt/WebX !!! Is it correct? (y/n): y ** Cleanup /export/home/dimstat ** Add User... ** WebX Setup... ** dim_STAT Server extract... ** HTTP Server Setup... ** Database Server Setup... ** ADMIN/Tools Setup... ** TEMP directory... ** Permissions... ** Crontab Setup... Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.11 snv_79a January 2008 Warning - Invalid account: 'dim' not allowed to execute cronjobs   ** ** INSTALLATION is finished!!! ** May I create now a dim_STAT-Server start/stop script in /etc/rc*.d? (y/n): y ** =================================================================== ** ** You can start dim_STAT-Server now from /export/home/dimstat/ADMIN: ** ** # cd /export/home/dimstat/ADMIN ** # ./dim_STAT-Server start ** ** and access homepage via Web browser - http://localhost:80 ** ** To collect stats from any Solaris-SPARC/x86 or Linux-x86 machines ** just install & start on them [STAT-service] package... ** ** Enjoy! ;-) ** ** -Dimitri ** ===================================================================   root@soldevx>

 

After installation, please proceed with installation of the STAT service on the nodes of your choice:

cd dimSTAT pkgadd -d dimSTAT-Solx86.pkg

Note: the dimSTAT STAT service needs to be installed on all nodes that you want to monitor and record for performance data.

dimSTAT – Configuration

The following steps will guide you through a simple dimSTAT configuration.

First, open a browser and navigate to http://localhost. You should see a similar screen:

Then click on the dim_STAT Main Page link (Welcome!). Following similar screen should now appear:

Let's start a new collect. Click on the “Start New Collect” link:

Enter the information to start a new collect on the host named localhost. Click the “Continue” button to move to the next screen:

Select the monitoring options of your choice (for example: vmstat, mpstat, iostat, netstat, etc...). Finally click the “Start STAT(s) Collect Now!!!” button to start monitoring.

The simple dimSTAT configuration is now complete. dimSTAT will record the selected data into a local database.

dimSTAT – Analysis

The following steps will guide you through a simple dimSTAT analysis session.

First, open a browser and navigate to http://localhost/ You should see a similar screen:

Next click on the “Welcome!” link to proceed to the next screen:

Click on the “Analyze” button to start analyzing recorded data. You should see a similar screen:

Select “Single-Host Analyze” and click on the “Analyze” button to proceed to the next screen:

Select the second line (with ID = 2) and click on the “VM stat” button to proceed to the next screen:

You should see a similar screen (top part).

Scroll to the bottom of the screen and select the tick boxes “CPU Usr%”, “CPU Sys%”, “CPU Idle%”. Then click on “Start” button to display the results.

et voila! dimSTAT displays a nice little graph that shows the percentage of usr, sys and idle time for the selected system.

Thomas Bastian was a coauthor of an earlier version of this document. The earlier version of this page has been published in the "The Developers Edge" in 2009.