Tabor Kelly wrote:
>
> I have found how to collect limited system statistics with
> sysctlbyname(), but I need to know how to do more. In specific I need
> to know how much memory is being used, and what percentage of
> processor cycles are being used.
>
> Any help is greatly appreciated, Thank You.
>
> Tabor Kelly
I have always wanted to see some kind of kernel option to allow an HP-UX style metrics
interface. IMHO, it should be a kernel
option, but the hooks would have to be in every vital kernel function.
HP Measureware is quite handy in load and capacity planning. With new SMP machines
and HA tools being made available on a wide
basis now, a tightly-coupled kernel-level Measureware-like interface could be a good
idea whose time has come.
As I said, this should either be a module or a compile-time option for the kernel, as
it would introduce a small, but
near-negligible, performance hit for the duration of a study, so it should be capable
of being disabled for generic production use.
My sources in HP say it's been used internally by HP to determine where to tune their
kernel code with each successive release since
the tightly-coupled measureware interface was established, so the idea would also have
practical benefit to the core team and other
kernel developers for future planning, and making FreeBSD even more efficient than it
already is. At the current state of FreeBSD,
this could be a good idea for FreeBSD-6.0.
A fair assumption that SMP could be in commodity user-oriented gear by the time
FreeBSD-6.0 is -RELEASE in at least 50% of the off
the shelf products at the time wouldn't be a stretch assumption IMHO. This plus
hardware speed improvements would make any
performance hits near-negligible.
I floated this idea a few years ago, but got burned up in the flames by people mainly
using the performance-hit argument. In this
day and age, and especially by the time 6.0-RELEASE is available, IMHO, that will be a
dead argument against such a metrics
interface at the kernel-level.
It also opens the door to third-party userland metrics collection and analysis tools,
both standalone, and clustering, both freeware
and commercial.
Anyone who is unfamiliar with the HP Measureware kernel interface should search on
Measureware and HP-UX internals documents at
hp.com, the interface is integral to the HP kernel, and covers almost any kernel
statistic you can think of, because it is so
tightly-coupled to the kernel. A userland daemon exists that can allow collecting
such metrics over the wire from a cluster of
computers, or from a network of standalone computers into a central capacity-planning
workstation running a userland
collection/analysis tool. Of course, the collection/analysis tool can exist on the
same system being measured, but that in itself
would introduce a performance hit [being an X app running on the production ox being
measured], and thus is not recommended.
I think this is an idea whose time has come.
jim
--
ET has one helluva sense of humor!
He's always anal-probing right-wing schizos!
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