{"id":1742,"date":"2010-01-10T15:27:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-10T20:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/g33kinfo.com\/info\/?p=1742"},"modified":"2010-01-10T15:27:57","modified_gmt":"2010-01-10T20:27:57","slug":"oh-noes-my-is-load-high-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/g33kinfo.com\/info\/oh-noes-my-is-load-high-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh Noes, my is load high! Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Server Load:<\/h3>\n

Server load is a measure of the amount of work that a computer system performs. The load average represents the average system load over a period of time.<\/p>\n

A server load average will measure the number of active processes at any given time. The load average seen in top is simplistic and uses several variables to define it. Depending on the processor and memory available the “nominal” or normal load will vary. High load averages will usually be indicated by higher than average swap usage. Generally, linux will use the memory it has available and utilize swap to alleviate the higher than average load. <\/p>\n

Linux splits up it usable RAM into chunks called pages. In order to free up memory, linux will write these chunks to a predefined space on the hard disk, called swap space, to free up that chunk of memory. The totals of RAM and swap space is equal to the amount of virtual memory a system has.<\/p>\n

When viewing the results of, lets say top, the load averages are for the time frames of 1, 5 and 15 minutes. There are a several ways to monitor your servers load. The first thing you will need to do is login to your server via SSH.<\/p>\n

  • \n1) uptime: The uptime command produces the following output:
    \n
    \nuptime
    \n 14:08:20 up 26 days, 3:46, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.07, 0.02
    \n<\/code>
    \nAccording to the man page, Uptime gives a one line display of the following information. The current time, how long the system has been running, how many users are currently logged on, and the system load averages for the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

    2)procinfo: On Linux systems, the procinfo command produces the following output:<\/p>\n


    \nprocinfo -a
    \nLinux 2.6.9-023stab046.2-enterprise (root@rhel4-32) (gcc 3.4.5 20051201 ) #1 SMP Mon Dec 10 15:22:33 MSK 2007 4CPU [host]<\/p>\n

    Memory: Total Used Free Shared Buffers
    \nMem: 524288 326660 197628 0 0
    \nSwap: 0 0 0<\/p>\n

    Bootup: Tue Jul 8 20:39:12 2008 Load average: 0.03 0.06 0.02 1\/67 5086<\/p>\n

    user : 8:55:25.21 0.3% page in : 0
    \nnice : 8:42:41.50 0.3% page out: 0
    \nsystem: 9:28:11.27 0.3% swap in : 0
    \nidle : 102d 23:25:21.71 98.4% swap out: 0
    \nsteal : 0:00:00.00 0.0%
    \nuptime: 26d 3:50:49.00 context :4294967295\tinterrupts: 0<\/p>\n

    Kernel Command Line:
    \n quiet<\/p>\n

    Modules:<\/p>\n

    File Systems:
    \next3 ext2 [proc] [tmpfs] [devpts]
    \n<\/code><\/p>\n

    Procinfo gives a wealth of information including;<\/p>\n