Logging system resources with dstat

Dstat allows you to see all system resources and compare them against each other, this is very useful for seeing what is happening to the resources on a server, if a particular resource has run out for example it can cause performance problems. To use dstat you will first need to install it, if you do not already have it.
apt-get install dstat

This is essentially running dstat with -cdngy as this is what happens by default when you run dstat alone. This will output information for each variable to the screen every second. There are a lot of things you can monitor with dstat, you can check all these out on the man page which is definitely worth a look at.
dstat -tcdrgilmns --output /var/log/dstat.csv --noupdate 5

-t Time ! enables timestamps on the logs, very useful when logging at logs later -c "#$ stats %system, user, idle, wait, hardware interrupt, software interrupt& -d Disk stats %read, write& -r '() re*uest stats %read, write& -g #age stats %page in, page out& -i 'nterrupt stats -l +oad stats %, minute average, - minute average, ,- minute average& -m .emory stats %used, buffers, cache, free& -n /etwork stats %received, sent& -s 0wap stats %used, free&

!noupdate will mean that dstat will not refresh until - seconds have passed, otherwise dstat will still actually refresh every , second, it 1ust wont be written to the log file. - also means that the result of the dstat *uery will be logged every - seconds, you can change this to suit your needs however generally ' find that logging system resources every - seconds is plenty. The output of dstat is a .csv file, you can open it as a spreadsheet and view the recorded data easily, making dstat a great overall tool for analysis.