Hello Digital UNIX managers,
There is (finally) a new version of 'collect' (and 'collgui') available.
Collect is a data collector for operating system and process statistics. It
is packaged with some tools that allow graphical (if somewhat simple)
analysis of *collected* data. I emphasize *collected* (the past tense) to
reduce the risk of misunderstanding. It is NOT capable of realtime graphical
display. It allows the relatively cheap collection of data for later
analysis. For more information, see the README files that accompany
the kits.
[please be patient if you don't see the newest version on these servers...
they are mirrors and there is therefore a delay in propagation]
Collect can be found in the following places:
ftp.digital.com:/pub/DEC/collect/ (USA)
ftp.digital.de:/pub/DEC/collect/ (Germany)
ftp.digital.com.au/pub/unix/tools/collect (Australia)
There will soon be some web pages availabe externally. I will announce
them when they are available.
The files are:
collect-1.09.tar.gz - the sources, gnu-zipped and tarred (180KB)
COLLECT109SETLD.tar - a setld-installable binary version (2.7MB)
as usual, you will also need perl5 if you want to use 'collgui', the
graphical front end for data interpretation. perl5 is also available
in the same directory as a setld-installable kit. There are two kits
PERL5003SETLD.tar - Perl 5.003 for Dunix V3 and above
PERL5004SETLD.tar - Perl 5.004 for Dunix V4 and above
If you are curious about 'collgui', you can get some (somewhat older)
screenshots of it, and of the gnuplot graphics it produces. They should
be in the same directory where you found collect. They are:
collgui-screenshot.jpg - the control application in perl5/tk with
data selected that corresponds to the
following screenshot
gnuplot-annotated.jpg - the same as above, but with annotated curves
I'm not aware of any bugs in 'collgui'. Please keep in mind, however, that
it is not meant to be competition for the Polycenter Performace Whatever. The
intent was to provide _some sort_ of a graphical tool for analysis of
collected data. The interface may not be particularly intuitive. For those
with special needs, there is always 'cfilt' (the "back end" of 'collgui')
which does the actual work of extracting data from the text output of
'collect'. It can be used to extract just about any data that one might
be interested in. There are manpages for 'collect', 'collgui', and
'cfilt'.
The following is a list of changes since the last version:
June - August, 1998 (1.08d - 1.09):
collect:
o STEEL (DUnix V5) support.
o one or two bugs fixed that caused odd/weird disk configurations
to produce a core dump (when scsi floppy drive present, for example).
o added PPID (parent PID) to data collected for each process (for
determining creation hierarchy of processes in collected data).
also added the ability to select on PPID during playback
o added fork/vfork statistics to cpu subsys
o changed LSM output such that average service time is displayed for
read and write operations separately
o LSM not tested under steel!
o fixed bug when selecting processes during playback by username
o added new disk statistics (only available in steel):
AVW - average wait in milliseconds
WTQ - number of requests in wait Q
%WT - percent of requests that must spend time in wait Q
o changed the system & user time stats in the process subsystem to
display by default a normalized delta -- that is, the accumulated
cpu time since the last sample normalized to 1 second. Therefore
the units are CPU-seconds per second. The cumulative time can
still be displayed with a switch (see "collect -h").
collgui:
o added -vga switch for VGA resolution screens (640x480).
o added -side <size> to allow font size adjustment
o hard-coded text foreground to 'black' and text background to
a wonderful beige -- should eliminate problems with white-on-white
text under CDE
o lots of cleanup
As usual, if you find collect useful, I'd appreciate a note.
Rob Urban (urban_at_rto.dec.com)
Received on Wed Aug 26 1998 - 18:16:05 NZST