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This section includes various resources that can be used to learn more about resource monitoring and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific subject matter discussed in this chapter.
The following resources are installed in the course of a typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation and can help you learn more about the subject matter discussed in this chapter.
free(1) man page — Displays free and used memory statistics.
vmstat(8) man page — Displays a concise overview of process, memory, swap, I/O, system, and CPU utilization.
sar(1) man page — Produces system resource utilization reports.
sa2(8) man page — Produces daily system resource utilization report files.
http://linuxperf.nl.linux.org/ — The Linux Performance Tuning homepage. Provides a good introductory overview of resource monitoring for performance tuning purposes. The mailing list, unfortunately, appears to have been overrun by spam and is no longer used.
http://people.redhat.com/alikins/system_tuning.html — System Tuning Info for Linux Servers. A stream-of-consciousness approach to performance tuning and resource monitoring for servers.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2396 — Performance Monitoring Tools for Linux. This Linux Journal page is geared more toward the administrator interested in writing a customized performance graphing solution. Written several years ago, some of the details may no longer apply, but the overall concept and execution are sound.
The following books discuss various issues related to resource monitoring, and are good resources for Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators:
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administration Guide; Red Hat, Inc. — Includes a chapter on many of the resource monitoring tools described here.
Linux Performance Tuning and Capacity Planning by Jason R. Fink and Matthew D. Sherer; Sams — Provides more in-depth overviews of the resource monitoring tools presented here and includes others that might be appropriate for more specific resource monitoring needs.
Red Hat Linux Security and Optimization by Mohammed J. Kabir; Red Hat Press — Approximately the first 150 pages of this book discuss performance-related issues. This includes chapters dedicated to performance issues specific to network, Web, email, and file servers.
Linux Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Trent R. Hein; Prentice Hall — Provides a short chapter similar in scope to this book, but includes an interesting section on diagnosing a system that has suddenly slowed down.
Linux System Administration: A User's Guide by Marcel Gagne; Addison Wesley Professional — Contains a small chapter on performance monitoring and tuning.
Essential System Administration (3rd Edition) by Aeleen Frisch; O'Reilly & Associates — The chapter on managing system resources contains good overall information, with some Linux specifics included.
System Performance Tuning (2nd Edition) by Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci and Mike Loukides; O'Reilly & Associates — Although heavily oriented toward more traditional UNIX implementations, there are many Linux-specific references throughout the book.