Linux : sar command return “Cannot open /var/log/sysstat/sa27: No such file or directory”

By | August 29, 2020

Attempting to use the SAR (sadc) command to lookup the historical system resources consumption metrics and got the following message?

Cannot open /var/log/sysstat/sa27: No such file or directory
Please check if data collecting is enabled

Most likely data collecting is disabled (it is the default on several systems). You need to enable data collecting and restart the service as followed :

1. Edit the sysstat file :

/etc/default/sysstat

2. Locate the data collecting parameter and change it from “false” to “true” as followed :

ENABLED="true"

3. Restart the service :

/etc/init.d/sysstat restart

All done. Since it store the results by 10 minutes increments, the first historical value should appear within that time frame.