In this hands-on project, you monitor system performance using command-line utilities in...

In this hands-on project, you monitor system performance using command-line utilities included in the sysstat package.

1. Switch to a command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log in to the terminal using the user name of root and the password of secret.

2. At the command prompt, type mpstat and press Enter to view average CPU statistics for your system since the last boot time. (If you do not have the sysstat package installed, simply run the yum install sysstat command.) What is the value for %user? Is this higher, lower, or the same as %system? Why? What is the value for %idle? What should this value be over?

3. At the command prompt, type mpstat 1 5 and press Enter to view five CPU statistic measurements, one per second. How do these values compare with the ones seen in Step 2? Why?

4. Switch to the gdm by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7, and log in to the GNOME Desktop Environment as sample user one with a password of secret.

5. Open several applications of your choice.

6. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2. Type mpstat 1 5 at the command prompt and press Enter to view five CPU statistic measurements, one per second. How do these values compare with the ones seen in Step 3? Why?

7. Switch back to the GNOME Desktop Environment by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7 and close all programs.

8. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2. Type iostat at the command prompt and press Enter to view average device I/O statistics since the last boot time. What devices are displayed? How many blocks were read and written to your hard disk since the last boot time, on average?

9. At the command prompt, type iostat 1 5 and press Enter to view five I/O statistic measurements, one per second. How do these values compare with the ones seen in Step 8? Why?

10. Switch to your GNOME Desktop Environment by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7, and open several applications of your choice.

11. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, type iostat 1 5 at the command prompt, and press Enter to view five I/O statistic measurements, one per second. How do these values compare with the ones seen in Step 9? Were there any significant changes? Why?

12. Switch back to the GNOME Desktop Environment by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7 and close all programs.

13. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, type sar at the command prompt, and press Enter. What statistics are displayed by default? What times were the statistics taken?

14. At the command prompt, type sar -q and press Enter to view queue statistics. What times were the statistics taken? How does this compare with what you found in Step 13? What is the queue size? What is the average load for the last minute? What is the average load for the last five minutes?

15. At the command prompt, type sar –q 1 5 and press Enter to view five queue statistics, one per second. How do these values compare with those taken in Step 14? Why?

16. Switch to your GNOME Desktop Environment by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7 and open several applications of your choice.

17. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, type sar -q 1 5 at the command prompt, and press Enter to view five queue statistic measurements, one per second. How do these values compare with the ones seen in Step 15? Why?

18. Switch back to the GNOME Desktop Environment by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7 and close all programs.

19. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, type sar –W at the command prompt, and press Enter. How many pages were swapped to and from the swap partition today, on average?

20. At the command prompt, type sar –W 1 5 and press Enter to view five swap statistics, one per second. How do these values compare with those taken in Step 19? Why?

21. Switch to your GNOME Desktop Environment by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7 and open several applications of your choice.

22. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, type sar -W 1 5 at the command prompt, and press Enter to view five swap statistic measurements, one per second. How do these values compare with the ones seen in Step 20? Why?

23. Switch back to the GNOME Desktop Environment by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F7. Close all programs and log out of the GNOME Desktop Environment.

24. Switch back to your command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2.

25. Type exit and press Enter to log out of your shell.