SAR and Debian

[hack3rcon]

Hello,
Does SAR automatically collect system activities or do you need to write a cron file?

Thank you.

[sysstat]

Hi,
You need a cron file or a systemd unit to trigger the data collector.
Note that you can ask sysstat to create and install it for you automatically if you configure, compile and install sysstat from the sources.

[hack3rcon]

Hi,
I installed it via apt command and then:

# systemctl enable sysstat
#
# systemctl start sysstat

Are these enough?

[sysstat]

The sysstat service should be started whenever the system is restarted to insert a LINUX RESTART message in the saDD datafile.
But you should also start the sysstat-collect service to collect data.
Don't know exactly what you should do in your case as I don't know the contents of the Debian package.

[hack3rcon]

Hello,
Thanks again.
Have you ever installed sysstat on Debian?
You can see the contents of the package by visiting https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/sysstat

[sysstat]

No, never installed on Debian.
Checking the link above, I can see that Debian actually uses systemd and so, starting sysstat and sysstat-collect services should be enough to collect system activities.

[hack3rcon]

Hi,
Thanks again.
1- The sysstat-collect is inactive and cannot start. What is the function of this service?

2- How do I clear the logs once a month?

[sysstat]

The sysstat-collect unit is the main service that calls the data collector periodically.
The HISTORY variable from /etc/sysconfig/sysstat file will tell sysstat how many days worth of data to keep (see sysstat(5) manual page)

Remember that you can tell sysstat to install et set up all the boring things for you. If your Debian package doesn't work as expected, don't hesitate to download sysstat tarball, configure, compile and install it (uninstall your Debian package before). Everything will work out of the box, e.g. to tell sysstat to collect data every 5 minutes and keep one month worth of data logs, enter:

./configure history=28  --enable-install-cron cron_interval=5
make
sudo make install

You can also use iconfig, the interactive configuration script, to tune configuration and check all the possible options instead of the default configure command.

[hack3rcon]

Hello,
Thanks again.
The sysstat-collect is inactive:

# systemctl status sysstat-collect
○ sysstat-collect.service - system activity accounting tool
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-collect.service; static)
     Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2024-03-15 04:10:04 EDT; 3min 10s ago
TriggeredBy: ● sysstat-collect.timer
       Docs: man:sa1(8)
    Process: 119337 ExecStart=/usr/lib/sysstat/sa1 1 1 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 119337 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 8ms

Mar 15 04:10:04 gitlab systemd[1]: Starting sysstat-collect.service - system activity accounting tool...
Mar 15 04:10:04 gitlab systemd[1]: sysstat-collect.service: Deactivated successfully.
Mar 15 04:10:04 gitlab systemd[1]: Finished sysstat-collect.service - system activity accounting tool.

And the HISTORY variable is in /etc/sysstat/sysstat file.