"Cannot open /var/log/sysstat/sa16 Please check if data collecting is enabled in /etc/default/sysstat"

Question

I want to look at disk I/O info on my machine/in general. Found some help from https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/55212/how-can-i-monitor-disk-io

After recently installing sysstat package and attempting to use sar command (I assume) as that person did, I was instead prompted to check if data collecting was enabled in the above specified file.

After:

sudo vim /etc/default/sysstat

I changed the only line of uncommented code:

ENABLED="false"

to:

ENABLED="true"

However, I am still not able to run sar and get the expected output in my terminal.

completely missed the iostat -x 1 command that person ran...all good — David Tahvildaran, Aug 17 '17 at 01:48
^ If you have an answer, David, would you be able to expand on it in a self-answer below? — halfer, Oct 08 '17 at 13:29

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 23 '18 at 09:33

16

Try restarting the service and see the data collects or not

$ sudo service sysstat restart

answered Jan 23 '18 at 09:33

Javeed Shakeel

2,926
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In my case it was disabled, so to make it start on next boot: sudo systemctl enable sysstat – 16851556 Nov 15 '22 at 16:53

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 10 '20 at 05:47

I assume that you have installed the sysstat utility properly,

apt-get install sysstat

STEP 1

Open "/etc/default/sysstat" using your favorite file editor and change ENABLED="false" to ENABLED="true"

vim /etc/default/sysstat
----
# Should sadc collect system activity informations? Valid values
# are "true" and "false". Please do not put other values, they
# will be overwritten by debconf!
ENABLED="true"
----

STEP 2

change the collection interval from every 10 minutes to every 2 minutes. So that we get metrics for every two minutes, you can change the interval as per your need.

----
vim /etc/cron.d/sysstat
Change
5-55/10 * * * * root command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1
To
*/2 * * * * root command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1
----

STEP 3

Next we need to restart the sysstat service.

service sysstat restart
Or
/etc/init.d/sysstat restart

For reference you can click here

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 27 '20 at 11:32

I install sysstat when I provision new Ubuntu machines so it's scripted.

apt-get install sysstat -y
sed -i 's/false/true/g' /etc/default/sysstat
sed -i 's/5-55\/10/*\/2/g' /etc/cron.d/sysstat
service sysstat restart

In 15 minutes run this command to see some data ...
sar -d

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 07 '19 at 17:12

Please follow the steps below to get it to work: https://www.crybit.com/sysstat-sar-on-ubuntu-debian/

Open /etc/default/sysstat using your favorite editor and change ENABLED="false" to ENABLED="true"

$ vi /etc/cron.d/sysstat

Change

5-55/10 * * * * root command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1

To:

*/2 * * * * root command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1

Then:

$ service sysstat restart

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 09 '22 at 16:36

1

just restart it to reload modified configuration :

sudo systemctl restart sysstat.service

it works for me :)

answered Sep 09 '22 at 16:36

Ali

11
4

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Aug 24 '18 at 01:27

0

Running iostat as:

$ iostat -x 1

I was able to see the utilization of each device and can now run sar without any issues.

edited Aug 24 '18 at 01:27

Stephen Rauch

47,830
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answered Aug 24 '18 at 01:05

David Tahvildaran

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3
10

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 15 '22 at 17:34

0

This enabled and started it:

sudo sed -i "s|ENABLED="false"|ENABLED="true"|g" /etc/default/sysstat
sudo systemctl enable sysstat && sudo systemctl start sysstat

You may need to wait like 15 minutes to start seeing sar values.

answered Nov 15 '22 at 17:34

16851556

255
3
11

"Cannot open /var/log/sysstat/sa16 Please check if data collecting is enabled in /etc/default/sysstat"

7 Answers7