Load Average Notes
Explain Load Average and vmstat
'vmstat 1' will give you stats for the system, including how many processes are waiting to be run, blocked in uninterruptable sleep and swapped out. These are the three first numbers ('r 'b' and 'w'):
bash-2.05a$ vmstat 1 procs memory swap io system cpu r b w swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id 0 0 0 75780 4148 29212 83148 0 0 4 5 47 62 3 1 13 1 0 0 75780 4140 29212 83148 0 0 0 0 1184 677 3 1 96
A process in uninterruptable sleep will add one to your load.
You could also use 'ps aux' to see in what state you processes are. The field STAT is where you get the state.
bash-2.05a$ ps aux USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 1 0.0 0.0 1272 72 ? S Apr04 0:04 init [2] [...] mysql 7048 0.0 6.8 1061200 140928 ? D Apr01 2:35 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr -- [...]
Here the mysqlprocess is in the "D"-state which is uninterruptable sleep, while init is in "S" - sleeping.
Also check the man pages for vmstat and ps for more detailed info on this.
(Stolen from) Sigurd Urdahl sigurdur at linpro.no Systemkonsulent | Systems consultant Linpro A/S www.linpro.no