IV70848: MISSING OPTION TO REDUCE CPU CONSUMPTION WHEN DATA COLLECTIONS ARE NOT REQUIRED

IBM Tivoli Monitoring: Unix(R) OS Agent 6.3.0.5-TIV-ITM_UNIX-IF0001
IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.3.0 Fix Pack 6 (6.3.0-TIV-ITM-FP0006)

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• Problem:
  There are cases where the UNIX OS agent is only needed to
  support remote deploy or other infrastructural tasks. In these
  cases metrics data collections are not required and in
  particular it is not necessary to spawn the kuxagent children
  processes. Introducing a configuration variable to prevent these
  processes from starting would allow to save a lot of unnecessary
  CPU workload on such systems.
  
  
  
  Affected Platforms / Versions:
   This issue affects all the UNIX OS agent versions.
  
  
  
  Diagnostics:
   n/a
  
  
  
  Initial Impact:
   High, when the unnecessary CPU workload occurs on multiple
  virtual environments, like Solaris Local Zones or AIX WPARs, all
  on the same physical server.
  
  
  
  Additional Keywords:
   stat_daemon, mount_stat, kux_vmstat, ifstat, nfs_stat,
  kuxdstat, aixdp_daemon
  

Local fix

Problem summary

• The Monitoring Agent for UNIX OS is sometimes only installed to
  support remote deploy of other agents, or to perform take
  actions or other infrastructural tasks.  No operating system
  resources actually need to be monitored, but still the agent
  consumes a lot of CPU and memory because it starts the
  subdaemons for gathering statistical metrics (stat_daemon,
  ifstat, kux_vmstat, kuxdstat, nfs_stat, mount_stat and
  aixdp_daemon).
  
  In order for this APAR to be properly implemented in your
  environment, a new environment variable has been added.  See the
  "Install Actions" section of the APAR conclusion for more
  details.
  
       j
  

Problem conclusion

• Introduced new environment variable that allows to prevent
  subdaemons from starting.  When configured, all of the
  attributes that are based on metrics from the subdaemons will
  not be collected but the kuxagent main executable remains
  available to support infrastructure tasks.
  
  Install Actions:
  set KUX_DISABLE_SUBDAEMONS=true
  Allowed values are "true" or "false".  The default value is
  "false".
  
  
  The fix for this APAR will be contained in the following
  maintenance packages:
  
  | FixPack    | 6.3.0-TIV-ITM-FP0006
  | InterimFix | 6.3.0.5-TIV-ITM_UNIX-IF0001
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  ITM AGENT UNIX

• Fixed component ID

  5724C040U

Applicable component levels

• R630 PSY

     UP

• R610 PSN

     UP

• R620 PSN

     UP

• R621 PSN

     UP

• R622 PSN

     UP

• R623 PSN

     UP