Description of problem: When I query a RH ES v3 u7 server using snmp for idle ticks which should indicate that the server is loaded or not. After a large amount of uptime (circa 240days) the servers all report the idle ticks not increasing even though the server has been idle for some time. If I run the following command awk '/^cpu / {print $5}' /proc/stat I can see that the counter is still incrementing but snmpd reports UCD-SNMP-MIB::ssCpuRawIdle.0 = Counter32: 4294967295 When I query with the following OID enterprises.ucdavis.systemStats No matter how long the system is up it will always report the variable 4294967295, even if the system is 100% idle. I have done some extensive research and it looks as though the problem is resolved with the following patch from the net-snmp cvs. http://net-snmp.cvs.sourceforge.net/net-snmp/net-snmp/agent/mibgroup/ucd-snmp/vmstat.c?r1=5.7&r2=5.8 How reproducible: Very Easy. Steps to Reproduce: snmpwalk -v 2c -c private localhost enterprises.ucdavis.systemStats | grep Idle ; sleep 60 ; snmpwalk -v 2c -c private localhost enterprises.ucdavis.systemStats | grep Idle Actual results: UCD-SNMP-MIB::ssCpuIdle.0 = INTEGER: 99 UCD-SNMP-MIB::ssCpuRawIdle.0 = Counter32: 4294967295 Expected results: UCD-SNMP-MIB::ssCpuIdle.0 = INTEGER: 99 UCD-SNMP-MIB::ssCpuRawIdle.0 = Counter32: [[4294967295]] Where the [[]] Number should have incremented as the server is idle. Additional info: This problem appears to occur in all Redhat EL v3 servers that we have with huge uptime. After reading around on the internet I have found several people with an identical issue. From what It looks like this is the patch to resolve the problem. http://net-snmp.cvs.sourceforge.net/net-snmp/net-snmp/agent/mibgroup/ucd-snmp/vmstat.c?r1=5.7&r2=5.8&diff_format=c There are also debian users with similar problems. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=308018
Thanks, I propose this issue for next update.
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2007-0458.html