LxTx

At a Glance

Free-to-use lxtx program download (Supports x64 Linux Kernel 2.4 or later)

lxtx  –   Introduction

1. lxtx is,

A simple command line program, like vmstat, sar, or iostat.

                lxtx is free-to-use, and may be downloaded at http://ontune.us

lxtx was developed to streamline an integrated monitoring of Linux servers.

lxtx replaces vmstat, sar, iostat, nmon, ps, lsof and other Linux monitoring programs, described below:

– Above features might cover the image below except trace or hardware level.

2. lxtx advantages

– Several commands or tools are usually needed to monitor performance items in Linux;

Using lxtx reduces the inconvenience, troubles, and errors that come with using several commands or tools, and their various options, because it covers the entire performance monitoring range.

– lxtx shows the differential file position when a process issues file I/O. This file position delta value can generally represent file I/O in the case of sequential read or write. The owner process information must of course be included with it.

– lxtx shows current active port queue length. A port can generally be considered as a path for an application service. Since network I/O happens via port queue, port queue activity can be used to monitor application activity. lxtx shows owner process information together with inode mapping throughout.

* High network I/O doesn’t mean high queue length, because speedy system can complete I/O requests before making a long queue. However, high queue length should be considered as a symptom of a big load in a network performance.

– lxtx shows protocol items’ activity via netstat delta, by which users may identify TCP/IP activities.

– lxtx shows mapping information of each disk for the case of Disk performance data. Via translation of multipath, pvs, and mount, lxtx shows the mounted filesystem, logical volume name, or volume group name, that each disk belongs to.

– lxtx shows filesystem’s usage delta, such as how much free size(or inode usage, etc) of each filesystem is increased/decreased.

* “Differential” is used the same as “Delta”; eg. Differential File Position = File Position Delta

3. How to run lxtx

CPU & Memory Utilization(Basic performance items) : ./lxtx -b

Each process performance information : ./lxtx -p 24 (24 is the maximum process entry count to display.)

         Differential file position : ./lxtx -p 24 -f

 (-f shows entries with detected position change, and -F shows every file entry.)

         Socket list : ./lxtx -p 24 -S (Every socket owned by each process is displayed.)

         Newly created or terminated process : ./lxtx -p 24 -k

Network interface performance : ./lxtx -n 8 (8 is the maximum network interface entry count to display.)

Disk performance : ./lxtx -v -d 16 (16 is the maximum disk entry count to display.) -v option shows LV / VG entries.

Port Queue Length : ./lxtx -o 8 (8 is the maximum port entry count to display.)

Differential Filesystem Status(Filesystem delta) : ./lxtx -m (shown when change is detected.)

Differential protocol statistics(netstat delta) : ./lxtx -t (shown when change is detected.)

Monitoring interval : -s 2 (2 second interval) Or -i 500 (500ms interval). 2 second interval is applied when interval is not defined.

Monitoring count : -c “Count”. Infinite count is applied when count is not defined.

./lxtx -a : -a option applys below:

à ./lxtx -b -p 24 -f -k -o 4 -n 4 -d 8

Basic items such as CPU/Memory, Each process(Differential File position and process creation/termination included), Port Queue, Network interface, and Disk monitoring are applied.

4. Resource usage comparison

* Command option for a test. [ Monitoring interval is 1 second ]

– nmon : nmon -f -t -s 1 -c 86400

– lxtx as nmon : ./lxtx -b -d 1000 -p 1000 -n 1000 -T 0 -s 1 -c 86400

– lxtx full option : ./lxtx -T 0 -b -p 1000 -d 1000 -n 1000 -o 1000 -f -m -t -s 1 -c 86400

* System specifications : All are guest linux servers with Intel i7 4 cores and 4GB Memory of VMware 12 pro.

5. Functional comparison

6. Examples

1) “./lxtx -a” Sample screen shot during downloading test via sftp

/vg/vg02/lvol2/dummy1.dat file is being downloaded via sftp.

sftp-server process is causing 2.67M file position delta,

and its parent process is causing 2.22M of TX queue length of local 22 port.

2.83MBPS writing(transmitting) is on-going via eth0. (IP is 192.168.29.66)

Disk read is on-going by 2.63MBPS at sdc, sdc2, and dm-5.

sdc is partitioned to sdc2, which is belonging to vg02 as volume group.

dm-5 is mapped to a logical volume to be used to mount at /vg/vg02/lvol2.

2) Process Count, Port Count, and Differential Protocol Statistics

3) Instead of vmstat: ./lxtx -b -s 2

* -b : Basic performance data
* -s 2 : 2 second interval (2 second interval applied if not defined.)

4) Instead of iostat: ./lxtx -v -d 4

* -d 4 : At most, top 4 disks are displayed
* -v : Disk data is followed by VG and LV data

5) Process list replacing ps and lsof

lxtx can replace ps and lsof.

“./lxtx -P ps” shows a process list.

“./lxtx -P ps,time,mem -F -S” lists process entries with process start time and memory allocated.

-F and -S are provided to check files and sockets opened by each process.

“-F” shows file fd, inode and filename opened by each process, and “-S” shows either socket inode or port information.

* Sample of “./lxtx -P ps -F -S”

6) System Information

lxtx shows the system information when it starts.

7. How to collect data

lxtx collects data from /proc files as below:

CPU/Memory : /proc/stat, /proc/meminfo

VM activity : /proc/vmstat

Process, Thread : /proc/[PID]/stat, /proc/[PID]/status, /proc/[PID]/io, /proc/[PID]/cmdline, /proc/[PID]/fd, /proc/[PID]/fdinfo, /proc/[PID]/task/[TID]/stat, /proc/[PID]/task[TID]/io

Network interface : /proc/net/dev

TCP/UDP port queue length : /proc/net/tcp, /proc/net/udp

Differential protocol statistics(netstat delta) : /proc/net/snmp, /proc/net/netstat

Disk : /proc/diskstats

Filesystem : /etc/mtab