From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 27 17:56:16 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F301F16A4CE for ; Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:56:15 +0000 (GMT) Received: from muse.calarts.edu (muse.calarts.edu [198.182.157.5]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A599443D3F for ; Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:56:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from smurphy@calarts.edu) Received: from [198.182.157.173] (not-in-use.calarts.edu [198.182.157.173] (may be forged)) by muse.calarts.edu (8.11.7p1+Sun/8.11.7) with ESMTP id j3RHuE603642 for ; Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:56:15 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <426FD26E.8070109@calarts.edu> Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:57:02 -0700 From: Sean Murphy User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Enigmail-Version: 0.90.0.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Help understanding load averages X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:56:16 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I am running FreeBSD 4.11 it is a PIII 800 My system is running MRTG and SNMP for monotoring network switches. The system is very sluggish and sometimes not responsive. MRTG has had problems with writing the new logs. I am having trouble understanding how load averages work. On some sites they say a load average of 3 is high and to put services on another server others say if it is over 1 put move services to another server. I have read the handbook http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/basics-processes.html I guess I am not getting it can someone help me how are load averages figured out and what do they mean? What is a high load average? Here is the load on my system #w load averages: 1.52, 1.11, 1.04 #systat ~ /0 /1 /2 /3 /4 /5 /6 /7 /8 /9 /10 ~ Load Average |||||||| ~ /0 /10 /20 /30 /40 /50 /60 /70 /80 /90 /100 ~ XXXXXXXXXXX root perl XXXXXXXXX root perl XXXXXXX # swapinfo Device 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Type /dev/ad0s1b 525120 272 524848 0% Interleaved -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCb9JuU1XvdHZC/KcRAhzEAKCKpQnz+hCR6qEVgeJz+j58DG5KtwCfRQhh WhErjYIBjc4vuEiej3TyWlM= =gMiZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----