i have this strange problem with iostat, and am puzzled as what to do with it :\ when 'iostat 1' is being run one would expect to see one report every 1 second, right ? in my case it doesnt work this way. not only doesnt it show values, but it quits almost immediately: doli@1g ~ $ iostat 1 Linux 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 (1g) 05/10/05 avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %iowait %idle 23.43 20.40 26.24 9.69 20.24 Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util the strange thing is that if i run it through strace or gdb it works just fine: doli@1g ~ $ strace -o /dev/null iostat 1 Linux 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 (1g) 05/10/05 avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %iowait %idle 23.40 20.04 25.98 9.62 20.95 Device: tps Blk_read/s Blk_wrtn/s Blk_read Blk_wrtn hda 19.77 148.34 227.81 523906 804576 hdc 13.37 181.20 284.62 639936 1005184 ... doli@1g ~ $ gdb `which iostat` GNU gdb 6.3 Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "i686-pc-linux-gnu"...(no debugging symbols found) Using host libthread_db library "/lib/tls/libthread_db.so.1". (gdb) run 1 Starting program: /usr/bin/iostat 1 (no debugging symbols found) Linux 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 (1g) 05/10/05 avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %iowait %idle 23.36 19.92 25.91 9.60 21.22 Device: tps Blk_read/s Blk_wrtn/s Blk_read Blk_wrtn hda 19.68 148.97 226.55 529386 805080 hdc 13.35 180.37 284.42 640976 1010728 why is this happening? my emerge info: Portage 2.0.51.21-r1 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.3-20050110, glibc-2.3.5-r0, 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 i686 Pentium III (Katmai) Gentoo Base System version 1.6.11 distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.5 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.5-r1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.5 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r8 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.16 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-s -pipe -march=pentium3 -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -fstack-protector" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-s -pipe -march=pentium3 -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -fstack-protector" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig collision-protect distcc distlocks sandbox sfperms strict userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.mirror.solnet.ch http://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/ http://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/download/gentoo-mirror" MAKEOPTS="-j4" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.se.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X alsa berkdb bitmap-fonts caps chroot crypt emboss gpm hardened jpeg minimal mmx mp3 ncurses nptl ogg pam pam_chroot pam_timestamp perl png pthreads python readline sftplogging sse ssl symlink tcpd threads type1-fonts vorbis zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Looks like an upstream bug - please file one with the author upstream. Also you might want to try an older version of sysstat and try without -O3 and -s.
fortunately it started to work find with -O2 instead of -O3. weird i havent thought about it before ? the funny thing is that it worked with O3 on 2.4 kernel and on 2.6 it wouldnt. could you please elaborate a little about why it would work while ptraced (strace/gdb) and wouldnt without it ?
argh i was too quick about reporting. take a look at this and try to exlain :) doli@1g ~ $ strace -o /dev/null iostat -x 1 1 Linux 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 (1g) 05/16/05 avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %iowait %idle 16.18 72.58 10.03 0.56 0.64 Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util hda 0.60 3.53 2.95 3.09 39.49 52.98 19.75 26.49 15.31 1.14 188.27 8.91 5.38 hdc 0.24 18.18 6.80 5.73 268.38 191.32 134.19 95.66 36.69 0.50 39.52 5.05 6.32 doli@1g ~ $ iostat -x 1 1 Linux 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 (1g) 05/16/05 avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %iowait %idle 16.18 72.58 10.03 0.56 0.64 Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util doli@1g ~ $ su - Password: 1g ~ # iostat -x 1 1 Linux 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 (1g) 05/16/05 avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %iowait %idle 16.18 72.58 10.03 0.56 0.64 Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util hda 0.60 3.53 2.95 3.09 39.50 52.98 19.75 26.49 15.31 1.14 188.27 8.91 5.38 hdc 0.24 18.18 6.80 5.73 268.43 191.32 134.21 95.66 36.69 0.50 39.52 5.05 6.32 1g ~ #
any thoughts on this?
Nope, this looks like an upstream bug. However, I recommend you try compiling it with no CFLAGS (including no stack smashing protection) and see if that solves the issue. If it does, reopen this bug and then we know it's a possible toolchain issue.
