sadc

Write 10 records at one-second intervals to a binary file

$ sadc 1 10 [/tmp/datafile]

$ sadc 1 10 -

$ sadc -S ALL 1 10 [/tmp/datafile]

$ sadc -S XDISK 1 10 [/tmp/datafile]

$ sadc -C "[system reboot]" [/var/log/sa/sa01]

sadc [-C comment] [-D] [-F] [-L] [-V] [-S {keyword,...}] [interval] [count] [outfile]

sadc (System Activity Data Collector) is the backend data collector for the sar command, part of the sysstat package. It samples system performance data at specified intervals and writes it in binary format to an output file.
The collector gathers metrics including CPU utilization, memory usage, I/O statistics, network activity, and process information. By default, it collects most kernel data except interrupts and disk statistics, which require explicit -S flags.
When outfile is set to -, sadc writes to the standard daily data file /var/log/sa/saDD. If count is omitted, sadc runs endlessly. The binary output is not human-readable and requires sar to interpret.

-C comment

Write a dummy record containing the specified comment string when interval and count are not specified

Use saYYYYMMDD instead of saDD as the standard daily data file name

Force creation of outfile; truncate if it exists with an incompatible format

Try to get an exclusive lock on the outfile before writing or truncating

Specify optional activities to collect: INT (interrupts), DISK (block devices), XDISK (partitions/filesystems), SNMP, IPV6, POWER, ALL, XALL

Print version number and exit

The /proc filesystem must be mounted for sadc to function. Available statistics depend on kernel version. sadc is typically invoked by the sa1 script via cron rather than run directly. Output files from older sadc versions may be incompatible with newer releases.

sadc is part of the sysstat package, originally written by Sebastien Godard. The sysstat tools evolved from earlier Unix system accounting utilities, with sadc providing the binary data collection layer that enables historical performance analysis through sar.

sar(1), iostat(1), mpstat(1), vmstat(8)