OK, got it now. The problem isn't with vmstat, it is with "top".
Xymon doesn't use the "top" output except to display on a status page. But the output from "top" in the client data message comes just before the "vmstat" output. And the output from "top" in OpenSuSE 13.1 has no final new-line ... so the client data ends up being garbled:
[top] ... lots of top output ... 51302 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.000 0.000 0:00.00 jfsSync 51321 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.000 0.000 0:00.00 bioset[vmstat] procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- -----cpu------ r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 0 186588 68608 5576 153836 3 11 201 52 92 230 1 1 97 0 0 0 0 193504 69168 9848 225832 40 45 1415 109 240 714 4 3 93 1 0
Xymon expects that '[vmstat]' marker to be at the beginning of the line. When top doesn't terminate the final line, then it ends up as above and Xymon doesn't see it.
So the solution is simple: Change the xymonclient-linux.sh script that generates the client data. Near the end of the script is where 'top' runs, so add a blank line to the output right after top:
if test -x "$TOP"
then
echo "[top]"
$TOP -b -n 1
# Some top's (OpenSUSE 13.1) do not output a final newline ...
echo "" <---- add this line
fiRegards, Henrik