Version & Recent Enhancement Information

The current version of SarCheck for Linux is: 6.01.20

Enhancements to version 6.01.20 include:
(Subscription holders: If you'd like this version, ask your sales rep)

• Fix the collection of interrupts data with CPUs 13-15
• For machines with 2-4 CPUs, show each CPU's activity as a different color on the graph. (Sorry, there aren't enough colors to make this useable with 8 or 16 CPUs.)

Enhancements to version 6.01.19 include:
(Subscription holders: If you'd like this version, ask your sales rep)

• Add some code to speed the QA process

Enhancements to version 6.01.18 include:
(Subscription holders: If you'd like this version, ask your sales rep)

• Handle corrupt data in /proc/partitions more cleanly

Enhancements to version 6.01.17 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Increase the number of supported processors from 8 to 32. Change the code to enable this to be quickly increased in the future if needed
• Increase the number of supported CPU sockets (Physical IDs) from 8 to 16. Change the code to enable this to be quickly increased in the future if needed
• Include CPU statistics subtotals by physical ID in the multiprocessor table (this requires HTML output)

Enhancements to version 6.01.16 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Fix a problem reading the contents of /proc/cpuinfo

Enhancements to version 6.01.15 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Fix a problem when the ps table became full
• Allow desktop/server decision to be forced by switch or parm
• Report on physical id & core id if that data is in /proc/cpuinfo
• Report on missing cpu data in an unusual case
• Report on iowait if /proc/stat has 8 fields in cpu data
• Fix -0.00 pct disk stats when analyzing an internal QA test file
• Report on individual processor iowait, irq, and softirq%
• Add physid, coreid, iowait, irq, softirq to processor table
• Add summary by physical id paragraph(s) to text
• Add explanations to individual disk analysis paragraphs
• Move error msgs into relevant paragraphs: for errors in interrupts, swap, df, and /proc/partitions
• Change text/graphs to System-wide CPU usage if multiple processors
• Fix cpu multiday graph if -nonice, -nomp,and/or -g24 switches used

Enhancements to version 6.01.14 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Parse procstat data correctly if "diskstuff ends" text is absent
• Parse procstat data correctly if "interrupts ends" is absent
• Parse procstat data correctly if "swaps ends" is absent
• Parse procstat data correctly if "df ends" is absent
• Parse procstat data correctly if "partitions ends" is absent
• Report on incomplete diskstuff, intr, swaps, df, procpart data
• Change (TM) to (R) or ® in output

Enhancements to version 6.01.13 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Tweak the parsing of data collected from /proc
• Fix a problem creating a gnuplot graph when multiprocessor data is missing

Enhancements to version 6.01.12 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Improve the wording used to explain swappiness recommendations
• Improve the wording used to describe the SCSI logging level
• Improve the wording used to explain I/O thresholds for multiprocessors
• Improve the algorithms used to analyze and report on peak I/O activity
• Vary the precision of pagein/out averages based on their value
• Reduce the minimum swappiness recommended for desktops from 20 to 10
• Report system name in Recommendations section
• Fix precision reported in CPU threshold used to detect a runaway process
• Fix text reporing in cap planning approximations
• Remove (mm/dd/yy) after key in serials()
• Add memory leak, large process, and runaway process warnings to Summary section
• Add -nonice switch & NONICE parm to ignore niced CPU stats
• Add I/O scheduler reporting
• Add pagecache value to Resource Analysis section (prior to kernel 2.6)
• Add -newkey switch
• Add check for gnuplot version 4.2 to work as 4.0
• Add semaphore reporting in Resource Analysis section
• Add shared memory reporting in Resource Analysis section
• Add -nonice & -newkey to help and usage text

Enhancements to version 6.01.10 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Change wording in the summary if the system is bordering on needing memory
• Fix a problem reporting the size of SarCheck's internal ps table with the -diag switch

Enhancements to version 6.01.09 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Fix an incorrectly reported number of cpus for multi-day data files when only one sample follows a reboot
• Don't recommend setting 'freepages_min' to 256 if its current value is between 221 and 255
• Correct an error in reporting whether the size of the freelist is ever less than the value of freepages_high

Enhancements to version 6.01.08 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Prepend "opt/sarcheck/procstat/" to the front of a procstat file name if directory is not specified and the filename is not found in working directory
• Check the /opt/sarcheck/procstat data if filename not found
• Handle error caused by a permissions problem when trying to create gnuplot scripts
• Fix typo in y-axis text of "swap used" graph
• Fix typo in "add memory" recommendation
• Add io scheduler reporting to sarcheckagent
• Increase %busy threshold for corrupt data to > 110%

Enhancements to version 6.01.06 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Fix the reporting of GRAPHDIR & HTMLGRAPHDIR parms keywords to correctly report a directory of "./"
• Add pspgin/out pswpin/out from /proc/vmstat 2.6 kernels

Enhancements to version 6.01.05 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Fix a bug where an empty ps table would print if a brief memory leak was seen

Enhancements to version 6.01.04 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Report on 'free + cached + buffers' as another definition of 'free' memory
• Add additional info on free memory to the graph & explain the graph in the text
• Fix a bug in memory 'room for growth' calculation
• Streamline the code for converting kb to mb
• Rework wording about the freemem graph being zoomed in
• Combine paragraphs about free memory & any freepages parameters

Enhancements to version 6.01.03 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Fix segfault error if no valid procstat and ps file
• Add -dclp, -dcrp, -dcml switches
• Add DCLP, DCRP, DCML, LGPROC, MLRATE, MLTIME parms keywords
• Update help, usage text, documentation with new switches and keywords
• Start using I/O bottleneck severity in recommendation algorithms
• Add I/O balancing to recommendations
• Improve error checking on bdflush, fs, kswapd, and swap data collected by sarcheckagent
• Recommend making changes with sysctl instead of echo if sysctl found and rec's are made
• Fix a rare 'divide by zero' error in the analysis program
• Various wording fixes
• Report if lvm* or md* devices found in /proc disk data

Enhancements to version 6.01.02 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Tweak y-axis adjustment of peak disk graph
• Add GNUPLOT keyword to pick 3.7 or 4.0 version
• Increased the size of SarCheck's internal disk tables
• Fix usage text to display on 24x80 window
• Add analysis of nice, iowait, irq, softirq fields in /proc/stat
• Add nice, iowait, irq, softirq data to summary table
• Don't graph swap rate if swap rate is zero

Enhancements to version 6.01.01 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Display the "peak disk busy" graph whenever 2 or more disks are present and /proc/partitions data is available
• Enhance the "peak disk busy" graph to show which disk is busiest
• Add an explanation of what the "peak disk busy" graph shows
• Allow "peak disk busy" y-axis maximum to exceed 100 if %busy of greater than 100% is seen
• Add the disk name to the disk busy graph title & legend
• Enhance the detection of invalid disk %busy data

Enhancements to version 6.01.00 include:
(This version is a general release and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• In the custom settings section, report on the PS keyword in the parms file
• Code cleanup - remove solaris-specific code left after the port to Linux
• Fix peak reporting for cpu, page in, page out, swap in, swap out, swap ops, minimum freemem, and disk %busy when //proc/partitions data is found
• Code cleanup - calcs for freemem min, avg, etc.
• Fix individual peak reporting for cpus
• Add a note if -nomp switch or NOMP parmsfile keyword used on a uniprocessor system
• Quantify peak disk activity in relation to the noatime explanation
• Fix -r error if no recs
• Add pkdisk graph and -pkdisk flag. This is undocumented because we should be able to make it clearer, but it wasn't worth holding up the release for it.
• Fix a bug in the min- & max-timeslice recommendation text
• Don't report on page in/outs or swap in/outs if there's no data
• Improve the y-axis scaling of the "swap space used" graph
• Improve text when the swap out rate is usually non-zero
• Add message to pkdisk text if unlikely stats are seen
• Add text if the amount of swap space in use didn't change during the monitoring period

Enhancements to version 6.00.01 include:
(This version is a beta and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Tweak the bdflush recommendations to consider memory size & potential cpu bottlenecks
• Fix a problem handling /proc/stat lines longer than 63 characters
• Fix average and peak i/o reporting in partitions data
• Add -g24 switch
• Collect data on filesystem usage for future analysis
• Add noatime/disk busy analysis for filesystem data. No recommendations yet.
• Report the presence of parameter recommendations in the Summary section of the SarCheck report
• Fix a bug in the code used to decide if a machine's usage looks more like a server or a desptop system
• Report on more of the parmsfile entries in the Custom Settings section of the SarCheck report

Enhancements to version 6.00.00 include:
(This version is a beta and is available to subscription holders who request it)

• Lowered the default y-axis scaling in the "Swap space in Use" graph
• Report on average page in and page out rates if non-zero
• Correctly report reboots which span multiple days
• Add multiday ps -elf analysis
• Add -wide switch for graphs
• Add HSIZE keyword to parms file
• Report on SCSI logging_level
• Report on and make recommendations for min/max timeslice parameters
• Report on and make recommendations for swappiness parameter

We have made a conscious decision to avoid using one source tree for different operating systems. This way, SarCheck can evolve on each platform according to the needs of the users, and we "cross pollinate" features from one version to another whenever it makes sense.

Back to the SarCheck home page

Copyright © 1996-2008 Aptitune Corporation, All rights reserved.
Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
Other products and companies referred to herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or mark holders.
This information is correct as of April 11, 2008 and is subject to change without notice.