Nmon is an excellent tool which can be used to monitor almost everything in a linux server (CPU, memory, network, disks,file systems, NFS, top processes, resources and on Power micro-partition information. This tool can also be use for benchmarking and recording disk, cpu stats after tuning the sub-sytems.
Data can be saved in a separate file and can be used with nmon Analyser Excel 2000 spreadsheet, which loads the nmon output file and automatically creates dozens of graphs ready for you to study or write performance reports.
Installing nmon
Nmon RPM’s : http://packages.sw.be/nmon/
Just download and install the right release and arch based on your server. For example
- cd /usr/src
- wget http://packages.sw.be/nmon/nmon-11f-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm
- rpm -ivh nmon-11f-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm
For other Linux releases you can download and install it from the pre-compiled binaries.
nmon source : http://nmon.sourceforge.net/pmwiki.php?n=Site.Download
Once you have installed just execute “ nmon -? ” to list the command help.
nmon -?
Outputs a hint on nmon use:
Hint: nmon [-h] [-s <seconds>] [-c <count>] [-f -d <disks> -t -r <name>] [-x]
-h FULL help information
Interactive-Mode:
read startup banner and type: “h” once it is running
For Data-Collect-Mode (-f)
-f spreadsheet output format [note: default -s300 -c288]
optional
-s <seconds> between refreshing the screen [default 2]
-c <number> of refreshes [default millions]
-d <disks> to increase the number of disks [default 256]
-t spreadsheet includes top processes;
-x capacity planning (15 min for 1 day = -fdt -s 900 -c 96)
To generate the graphs you can use the nmonanalyser tool. Please check with the links below :
Nmon
Usefull links
Nmon Screen-shots : http://nmon.sourceforge.net/pmwiki.php?n=Site.ScreenShots
nmonanalyser : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/WikiPtype/nmonanalyser
Nmon complete IBM manual : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/WikiPtype/nmon+Manual