On Thu, Jan 27, 2005 at 08:33:28AM -0800, Fargusson.Alan wrote:
> An uptime of 1 to 2 indicates that you have something running in a loop.  You 
> should use the Linux top command, or the ps command, to find it.

If you mean that in a negative sense (a 'crashed' process in a tight loop,
for example), that's a bit of a generalisation.  Sure, it might be a dud
process, but it could equally be your production database or web server
handling a lot of work at this minute.

If this is observed on a machine like one of Rob's or Adam's, you'd be right
in thinking that something was wrong somewhere.  Likewise, if all the
intervals show almost the same number, you can see that it's not a spike of
CPU usage.

When I'm compiling programs on my dual-CPU systems, I regularly see load
averages of 3 to 4.  I've seen 6 and higher at times.  A fellow I work
with uses the uptime output from a *very* busy machine he administers as
part of his .signature: numbers well over 400 for 1-, 5-, and 15-minute
intervals.

I guess I just wanted to say that load average equal to or greater than the
number of CPUs is not necessarily a bad thing.  As a sysadmin, the 'normal'
number you'd expect to see will vary from system to system, and you get to
know it -- when something abnormal appears, you "just know". :)

Cheers,
Vic Cross

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