Why does dstat show zeroes for disk activity on my virtual private server running Ubuntu?

Posted by Jonathan Berger on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Jonathan Berger
Published on 2011-03-02T06:56:14Z Indexed on 2011/03/02 7:26 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 322

Filed under:

linux

|

tools

I'm trying to monitor the number of disk reads and writes on my VPS (Rackspace in this case) running Ubuntu 9.04. I realize there are many tools to do this, but when using dstat 0.7 I tried the following command:

dstat -d

The output is just two columns of zeroes even when I upload a large file via scp that should be causing a large number of disk writes. Why is this, and how do I get dstat to correctly display the number of disk reads and writes?

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about linux

apt-get install and update fail

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I've got a problem with apt-get update and apt-get install ... commands . every time update or installing fails and errors are : Get:1 http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg [198B] Ign http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main Translation-en_US Get:2 http://dl… >>> More
kernel module compiling error

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
sh@ubuntu:/home/ccpp/helloworld$ make gcc-4.6 -O2 -DMODULE -D_KERNEL_ -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -isystem /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include -c -o hello-1.o hello-1.c hello-1.c:4:0: warning: "MODULE" redefined [enabled by default] <command-line>:0:0: note: this is… >>> More
Build-Essentials installation failing

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I am having trouble accessing the several critical header files that show to be a part of the build process. The "Ubuntu Software Center" shows "Build Essentials" as installed: Next I did the following two commands, which did not improve the problem: ~$ sudo apt-get install build-essential [sudo]… >>> More
Updating Debian kernel

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to update my Debian machine to 2.6.32-46 (which is the new stable). However, after doing apt-get update my apt-cache search linux-image shows me: linux-headers-2.6.32-5-486 - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-486 linux-headers-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem linux-headers-2… >>> More
Serial connection over a single USB cable (Windows to linux, or linux to linux)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm helping out with a project for an embedded device that only has USB and no serial. This device is running Linux. These days, when we need to connect to a serial port on a device we typically use a USB to serial adapter (on something like a phone system or a load balancing device, etc). I would… >>> More

Related posts about tools

java.lang.IllegalAccessException during Ant jwsc webservice build

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi. I have a large application, part of which relies on a set of 3 webservices. I'm currently in the process of writing an Ant build script to build and package the application into an EAR file. When building the web sub-project for this application I use the <jwsc> task in Ant to compile… >>> More
juju bootstrap fails with a local environment, why?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Each time I try to bootstrap juju using a local enviroment it fails starting the juju-db-braiam-local script as follows: $ sudo juju --debug --verbose bootstrap 2013-10-20 02:28:53 INFO juju.provider.local environprovider.go:32 opening environment "local" 2013-10-20 02:28:53 DEBUG juju.provider.local… >>> More
How to stop an IOException error using whilst using a combination of jython, pyro and ant?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
So the wonderful low down on this doozie of a problem: short version: We are building a distribution system for this item of software we're using. Basically we take out build artifact, store it on an ftp server which passes it to multiple clients which execute scripts to patch their servers. Long… >>> More
DNS Tools - DNS and Few of its Concerning Terms and Tools

as seen on Article City - Search for 'Article City'
A DNS or Domain Name System lets you locate computers on a network or the Internet TCP/IP network by domain name. The DNS server sustains a database of domain names or host names along with their cor... [Author: Daisy Osbaldo - Computers and Internet - April 02, 2010] >>> More
Search Engines Online Business Tools For Website Marketing - 3 Free Tools to Optimise Your Website

as seen on Ezine Articles - Search for 'Ezine Articles'
Search engines online business tools for website marketing are available by the thousands, if not millions. Lots of software companies have designed a whole range of different applications to help you optimise your website and marketing campaigns. When I first started with online marketing, I looked… >>> More