Issued:
2014-10-13
Updated:
2014-10-13

RHBA-2014:1468 - sysstat bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

sysstat bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated sysstat packages that fix several bugs and add two enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The sysstat packages provide a set of utilities which enable system monitoring of disks, network, and other I/O activity.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • When the sysstat utility appended new statistics to the "sa" daily data files, it did not check whether those files existed from the previous month. Under certain circumstances, for example when a month was short, sysstat appended new statistics to the old files. With this update, the utility has been modified to check whether the old files exist and remove them in case they does. As a result, new statistics are not appended to the old "sa" files. (BZ#921612)

  • Previously, the "sa2" script did not support the xz compression. As a consequence, old daily data files were not deleted. The support for the xz compression has been added to the script and the data is now deleted as expected. (BZ#1088998)

  • The dynamic ticks kernel feature can currently make the /proc/stat file unreliable because a CPU cannot provide reliable statistics if it is stopped. Even though the kernel is trying to provide the best guess, the statistics are not always accurate. As a consequence, some sysstat commands could show overflowed values. This update detects values going backwards in sysstat, and sysstat commands no longer show overflowed values.(BZ#1124180)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

  • With this update, the user is able to set a compress method in the /etc/sysconfig/sysstat configuration file using the ZIP variable. This enhancement provides an easier configuration of the data file compression method. (BZ#1102603)

  • The sysstat(5) manual page now provides documentation of the /etc/sysconfig/sysstat configuration file as well as detailed description of the HISTORY configuration variable. (BZ#1110851)

Users of sysstat are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian6ppc64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6i386

Updated Packages

  • sysstat-9.0.4-27.el6.src.rpm
  • sysstat-debuginfo-9.0.4-27.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • sysstat-9.0.4-27.el6.i686.rpm
  • sysstat-debuginfo-9.0.4-27.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • sysstat-9.0.4-27.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • sysstat-9.0.4-27.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • sysstat-9.0.4-27.el6.s390x.rpm
  • sysstat-debuginfo-9.0.4-27.el6.i686.rpm
  • sysstat-debuginfo-9.0.4-27.el6.s390x.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information