From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri May 3 7:36: 5 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mail.speakeasy.net (mail14.speakeasy.net [216.254.0.214]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC6C237B404 for ; Fri, 3 May 2002 07:35:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 32611 invoked from network); 3 May 2002 14:35:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO server.baldwin.cx) ([216.27.160.63]) (envelope-sender ) by mail14.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with DES-CBC3-SHA encrypted SMTP for ; 3 May 2002 14:35:57 -0000 Received: from laptop.baldwin.cx (gw1.twc.weather.com [216.133.140.1]) by server.baldwin.cx (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g43EZuF11697; Fri, 3 May 2002 10:35:56 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.5.2 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 10:35:49 -0400 (EDT) From: John Baldwin To: Jason Borkowsky Subject: RE: CPU context switching/load numbers Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 03-May-2002 Jason Borkowsky wrote: > >> > Greetings! I have a FreeBSD-4.5 box that is a specialized server box. It >> > doesn't run any user processes and only runs a bunch of small, server >> > efficient processes. >> > >> > I have an inconsistency that I am trying to explain. When I do a "w" >> > command >> > on the box, I see this: >> > >> > 7:31PM up 74 days, 39 mins, 1 user, load averages: 1.12, 0.94, 0.93 >> > >> > This says I have a load of 1.12 over the past minute, or, for every >> > available CPU interval, I have 1.12 processes requesting the CPU. >> >> This last bit is where you go wrong. The 1.12 is just for the minute prior >> to >> when you ran the command, it has no relation to any previous minutes. Just >> cause it is 1.12 right now doesn't mean the average load for every minute is >> 1.12. > > But these numbers are over months...I have used an expect script to > periodically poll the load and vmstat, and save them off to a file. My > average load over a three month period is about 0.98, but the average CPU > idle time over the same 3 month period is about 85% idle. Yes, and when your script was running, it was runnable, right? So it artifically inflated the last minute's load. -- John Baldwin <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message