Iostat is a very powerful tool for monitoring the throughput of your storage subsystems. Especially to locate bottle necks and pinpoint possible upgrade scenarios. Not immediately visible here is how to install it on Centos 5.x and 6.x.
We shall use the whatprovides tool in yum to locate the packages that provide iostat
[root@torino ~]# yum whatprovides */iostat Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit, security Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: it.centos.contactlab.it * epel: mirror.karneval.cz * extras: it.centos.contactlab.it * updates: mirror.bofh.so base/filelists_db | 4.9 MB 00:10 epel/filelists_db | 4.8 MB 00:10 extras/filelists_db | 2.7 kB 00:00 google-chrome/filelists | 1.1 kB 00:00 ... updates/filelists_db | 939 kB 00:02 sysstat-9.0.4-20.el6.i686 : The sar and iostat system monitoring commands Repo : base Matched from: Filename : /usr/bin/iostat munin-node-1.4.7-5.el5.noarch : Network-wide graphing framework (node) Repo : epel Matched from: Filename : /usr/share/munin/plugins/iostat sysstat-9.0.4-20.el6.i686 : The sar and iostat system monitoring commands Repo : installed Matched from: Filename : /usr/bin/iostat
After selecting the package we want (usually depending on which other tools we would like to have and also compatibility with other packages might be issues.
[root@torino ~]# yum install sysstat Loaded plugins: fastestmirror Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: mirror.crazynetwork.it * epel: mirrors.ircam.fr * extras: mirror.crazynetwork.it * updates: mirror.crazynetwork.it Setting up Install Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package sysstat.i386 0:7.0.2-11.el5 set to be updated --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ======================================================================= Package Arch Version Repository Size ======================================================================= Installing: sysstat i386 7.0.2-11.el5 base 182 k Transaction Summary ======================================================================= Install 1 Package(s) Upgrade 0 Package(s) Total download size: 182 k Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: sysstat-7.0.2-11.el5.i386.rpm | 182 kB 00:00 Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Finished Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction Installing : sysstat 1/1 Installed: sysstat.i386 0:7.0.2-11.el5 Complete! [root@torino ~]#
Once this is completed iostat should work
[root@torino ~]# iostat
Linux 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5xen (torino.maranello.local) 07/29/2012
avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
8.82 0.13 59.54 0.54 18.06 12.90
Device: tps Blk_read/s Blk_wrtn/s Blk_read Blk_wrtn
sda 66.83 120.54 430.63 4363863 15590257
sda1 0.00 0.05 0.00 1705 38
sda2 2.36 29.78 48.65 1078098 1761448
sda3 64.47 90.66 381.98 3282189 13828771
sda4 0.00 0.00 0.00 8 0
sda5 0.00 0.04 0.00 1439 0
hdc 0.31 58.13 0.00 2104380 0
[root@torino ~]#
Yeah !! See you around ..