ZoneHound™ is a utility which summarizes data collected by the ps utility. The purpose of ZoneHound is to tell you the resource utilization of each Solaris Zone on a system with multiple zones.
We use the ps utility's -Z option to display the zone name. This field is not wide enough to show a very long zone name, so we suggest that you use zone names which are short enough to display clearly and unambiguously.
We also use the ps utility's -y option to monitor memory usage. This option displays the resident set size in the RSS column of ps output. The total RSS size of a zone may exceed the amount of memory allocated to that zone, probably due to shared memory being reported multiple times.
ZoneHound's output is easily parsed and will be automatically analyzed by our ZoneHound performance analysis tool.
To install the software, log in to the global zone as root, uncompress, and detar the software. This only takes a few seconds.
To try ZoneHound, first make sure that it's running by displaying the help text:
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound -h
Now run a quick test of ZoneHound:
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound -quick &
This will cause ZoneHound to run for about two minutes. After 2-3 minutes, the output from this test will be stored in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory and the filename is a datestamp using the yyyymmdd naming convention.
For a longer test of ZoneHound, type:
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound &
This will cause ZoneHound to run for the default length of time, currently four hours. At the end of four hours, the output will be in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory and the filename is a datestamp using the yyyymmdd naming convention.
To reduce typing, you may want to add /opt/sarcheck/bin to root's PATH.
Example 1: A quick test of ZoneHound. Once you've installed ZoneHound, there is a quick way to test it in order to be sure that it's working correctly.
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound -quick
The -quick switch will cause ZoneHound to run for just a few minutes. The output will be stored in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory and the file name is a date stamp using the yyyymmdd naming convention.
Example 2: A longer test of ZoneHound. Once you've installed ZoneHound, there is a quick way to test it in order to be sure that it's working correctly.
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound &
This will run for the default period of four hours, so you'll start this and then check it later. The output will be stored in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory and the file name is a date stamp using the yyyymmdd naming convention.
Example 3: Changing the recording interval. The -wrfreq switch will change the frequency with which ZoneHound writes it's output. If you're monitoring a system with a workload that has frequent intermittent spikes in resource utilization, you may want to pick a lower number. If you're looking at overall activity over an entire day, you might want to pick a longer interval. If you're running our SarCheck analysis tool and want it to look at ZoneHound output, try to use the same intervals for sar, ps, and ZoneHound data collection. The following example assumes that you want the recording interval to be 20 minutes, or 1200 seconds).
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound -wrfreq 1200 &
Again, this will run for the default period of four hours, so you'll start this and then check it later. The output will be stored in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory and the file name is a date stamp using the yyyymmdd naming convention.
Example 4: Changing the length of the data collection. The -daylen switch tells ZoneHound how long to run in seconds. If you want ZoneHound to run for 10 hours, tell it to run for 36000 seconds. There is no "correct" length of time to run ZoneHound. Run it during the times that you care about, don't run it during times that you don't care about, and if you're running our SarCheck analysis tool and want it to look at ZoneHound output, try to coordinate the starting and ending times with those used for sar and ps data collection. The following example assumes that you want the recording interval to be 10 hours, or 36000 seconds).
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound -daylen 36000 &
This will run for ten hours, so you'll start this and check it the next day. The output will be stored in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory and the file name is a date stamp using the yyyymmdd naming convention.
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound -h
This sends a subset of the instructions found in this manual to standard output (stdout), which defaults to the screen. More details are found in this manual.
Here is the online FAQ section.
In some parts of the world, local resellers may charge prices which are higher than our list price because they pay for the currency conversions, international shipping, duties, support, etc. We urge our customers to support their resellers.
Call us at +1-603-382-4200,
fax us at +1-603-382-4247
write to us at PO Box 1033, Plaistow NH 03865, USA
use our email address: support@sarcheck.com
or contact the party from whom you purchased ZoneHound.
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zonehound: This program collects the data, formats it, and stores it in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory.
/opt/sarcheck/etc/zonehound.key: This file contains the activation key. Tampering with this file may permanently disable ZoneHound.
/opt/sarcheck/bin/zh2: This is a script that cleans up zonehound output, and is roughly analogous to a subset of the sa2 script used by sar.
/opt/sarcheck/zoneout/README: This is a readme file that explains the purpose of the zoneout directory..
/opt/sarcheck/etc/zhman101.htm: A copy of this manual. The exact name of the manual may vary from one release to another.
15:00:00 Zone CPU-sec RSS-mb PR-avg O-avg R-avg Z-avg table 15:10:00 global 116 214.24 64.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 8.7% 15:10:00 development 232 201.56 63.5 0.3 0.0 0.0 8.7% 15:10:00 production 40 83.25 43.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8.7% 15:20:00 global 131 214.25 64.0 1.1 0.0 0.0 9.6% 15:20:00 development 221 211.01 65.7 1.0 0.0 0.0 9.6% 15:20:00 production 40 83.25 43.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9.6% 15:30:00 global 204 214.24 64.0 1.1 0.0 0.0 10.3% 15:30:00 development 232 203.95 63.5 0.9 0.0 0.0 10.3% 15:30:00 production 42 83.25 43.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.3% 15:40:00 global 187 214.24 64.0 1.2 0.0 0.0 11.2% 15:40:00 development 211 199.85 63.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 11.2% 15:40:00 production 41 83.28 43.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.2% 15:50:00 global 177 191.26 62.8 1.1 0.0 0.0 11.9% 15:50:00 development 210 196.60 62.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 11.9% 15:50:00 production 39 83.28 43.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.9%
Zone: The name of each zone. Running the command zonename should give you the same thing.
CPU-sec: The total number of CPU seconds that can be accounted for with ps -elfyZ since the last time ps was run. This is only available with a resolution of one second and it may exceed the number of seconds of real time if more than one processor or core was in use.
RSS-mb: The total in megabytes of all of the RSS values for a given zone. This amount may exceed the amount of physical memory, apparently because shared memory is counted more than once.
PR-avg: The average number of processes seen by ps. The ps utility was run a number of times and this is the average.
O-avg: The average number of processes seen by ps with an "O" in the "S" column. This is the number of processes running.
R-avg: The average number of processes seen by ps with an "R" in the "S" column. This is the number of processes waiting to run.
Z-avg: The average number of processes seen by ps with an "Z" in the "S" column. This is the number of zombie processes seen.
table: The usage of ZoneHound's internal table or the number of times the table overflowed. This column is here to help us properly size the table.
Please note that the default values of are really just educated guesses because this is a new program that has only been tested at a few beta sites. We think the guesses are a reasonably good place to start because we're capturing a lot of activity despite the low overhead. Here is a list of values which can be overridden, and the meaning of each.
| RDFREQ | The frequency in seconds used to collect resource utilization data by running the ps command. The default is 30 seconds. Increasing the frequency will reduce the amount of data that gets lost but it will increase the overhead of running ZoneHound. |
| WRFREQ | The frequency in seconds used to write resource utilization data to output. The default is 600 seconds, or 10 minutes. Increasing the frequency will enable you to see any peaks in activity more clearly but will also make the data more "noisy" because random peaks will not be averaged into the data. Decreasing the frequency will make it easier to see the big picture, but some detail will be lost. The WRFREQ value should be at least 10 times greater than the RDFREQ value. This will ensure that there are more than just a few runs of the ps command summarized in each line of output. |
| DAYLEN | The length of time in seconds that you want ZoneHound to run. Run this for as long as you want, but don't collect data from time periods that you don't care about. |
| The length of time in seconds that you want ZoneHound to run. Run this for as long as you want, but don't collect data from time periods that you don't care about. | |
| Displays brief instructions and shows all of the possible switches. | |
| Allows you to change the activation key and software expiration date. | |
| Prints an order/registration form for those wishing to purchase a software license, or register their licensed software. | |
| Produces a quick run of ZoneHound for test purposes. | |
| The frequency in seconds used to collect resource utilization data by running the ps command. The default is 30 seconds. Increasing the frequency will reduce the amount of data that gets lost but it will increase the overhead of running ZoneHound. We suggest setting this to a value between 5 and 60 seconds. | |
| Display all the information needed to activate ZoneHound. | |
| Send ZoneHound output to stdout so that it can be piped, redirected, etc. The default is to put the output in the /opt/sarcheck/zoneout directory. | |
| The frequency in seconds used to write resource utilization data to output. The default is 600 seconds, or 10 minutes. Increasing the frequency will enable you to see any peaks in activity more clearly but will also make the data more "noisy" because random peaks will not be averaged into the data. Decreasing the frequency will make it easier to see the big picture, but some detail will be lost. The WRFREQ value should be at least 10 times greater than the RDFREQ value. This will ensure that there are more than just a few runs of the ps command summarized in each line of output. We suggest setting this to 300, 600, 900, or 1200 seconds. |