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This section includes various resources that can be used to learn more about resource monitoring and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific subject matter discussed in this chapter.
The following resources are installed in the course of a typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation.
free(1) man page — Displays free and used memory statistics.
top(1) man page — Displays CPU utilization and process-level statistics.
watch(1) man page — Periodically executes the specified program, displaying fullscreen output.
GNOME System Monitor Help menu entry — Graphically displays process, CPU, memory, and disk space utilization statistics.
vmstat(8) man page — Displays a concise overview of process, memory, swap, I/O, system, and CPU utilization.
iostat(1) man page — Displays CPU and I/O statistics.
mpstat(1) man page — Displays individual CPU statistics on multiprocessor systems.
sadc(8) man page — Collects system utilization data.
sa1(8) man page — A script that runs sadc periodically.
sar(1) man page — Produces system resource utilization reports.
sa2(8) man page — Produces daily system resource utilization report files.
nice(1) man page — Changes process scheduling priority.
oprofile(1) man page — Profiles system performance.
op_visualise(1) man page — Graphically displays OProfile data.
http://linuxperf.nl.linux.org/ — The Linux Performance Tuning homepage. Provides a good introductory overview of resource monitoring for performance tuning purposes. The mailing list, unfortunately, appears to have been overrun by spam and is no longer used.
http://people.redhat.com/alikins/system_tuning.html — System Tuning Info for Linux Servers. A stream-of-consciousness approach to performance tuning and resource monitoring for servers.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2396 — Performance Monitoring Tools for Linux. This Linux Journal page is geared more toward the administrator interested in writing a customized performance graphing solution. Written several years ago, some of the details may no longer apply, but the overall concept and execution are sound.
http://oprofile.sourceforge.net/ — OProfile project website. Includes valuable OProfile resources, including pointers to mailing lists and the #oprofile IRC channel.
The following books discuss various issues related to resource monitoring and are good resources for Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators:
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administration Guide; Red Hat, Inc. — Includes information on many of the resource monitoring tools described here, including OProfile.
Linux Performance Tuning and Capacity Planning by Jason R. Fink and Matthew D. Sherer; Sams — Provides more in-depth overviews of the resource monitoring tools presented here and includes others that might be appropriate for more specific resource monitoring needs.
Red Hat Linux Security and Optimization by Mohammed J. Kabir; Red Hat Press — Approximately the first 150 pages of this book discuss performance-related issues. This includes chapters dedicated to performance issues specific to network, Web, email, and file servers.
Linux Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Trent R. Hein; Prentice Hall — Provides a short chapter similar in scope to this book, but includes an interesting section on diagnosing a system that has suddenly slowed down.
Linux System Administration: A User's Guide by Marcel Gagne; Addison Wesley Professional — Contains a small chapter on performance monitoring and tuning.