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Admin as a service with sysstat for ex-post monitoring
Facts, Figures, and Data
The sysstat package contains numerous tools for monitoring performance and load states on systems, including iostat, mpstat, and pidstat. In addition to tools intended for ad hoc
use, sysstat comes with a collection of utilities that you schedule for periodic use as cron jobs (e.g., sar). The compiled statistics range from I/O transfer rates, CPU and memory utilization, paging and page faults, network statistics, and filesystem utilization through NFS server and client activities.
Of course, you could use top, vmstat, ss, and so on to determine the data, but bear in mind that system events are hardly likely to be restricted to the times at which you are sitting in front of the screen. Admins typically receive requests for more detailed information, like: "What exactly happened on system XY between 1:23 and 1:37am?" Many sensors in modern monitoring systems are capable of detecting these anomalies, but very few IT departments are likely to have configured comprehensive monitoring for all systems. Moreover, these metrics quite commonly are not implemented in a central monitoring setup. Sysstat gives you the perfect toolbox for these cases.
Installation
To install sysstat under Ubuntu and Debian, just run:
sudo apt install sysstat
By default, sysstat checks the system every 10 minutes with the use of a systemd timer. If you require more frequent measurements, you need to adjust the interval in the /usr/lib/systemd/system/sysstat-collect.timer file. You can set a scan every five minutes by entering *:00/05 instead of the default setting *:00/10:
[Unit] Description=Run system activity accounting tool every -10- 5 minutes [Timer] OnCalendar=*:00/05 [Install] WantedBy=sysstat.service
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