<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 10, 2006, at 6:42 AM, Sandeep Narasimha Murthy wrote:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoPlainText"><FONT size="2" color="black" face="Courier New"><SPAN lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black; font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; ">Can anyone please provide a brief idea on how check_load works and on the data it provides. The data provided is in the format </SPAN><B style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; font-weight: bold; "><SPAN style="font-weight:bold; font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; font-weight: bold; ">load average: 1.62, 1.67, 1.74, </SPAN></SPAN></B><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; ">which doesn’t make a lot of sense. I googled on this and ended up getting even more confused.</SPAN><O:P style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; "></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>"load average" is the number of processes (average) in the wait state over a given period of time. For most UNIX machines, the periods are usually 1, 5 and 15 minutes. (e.g., in your example, in the past minute an average of 1.62 machines were waiting for a CPU, in the past five minutes, 1.67, and in the past 15 minutes, 1.74).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>In the example you give, it would appear your machine is catching up, as the short-term averages are lower than the long-term averages, but it all depends on your applications that are running, what cycles they demand CPU on, etc., etc.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoPlainText"><FONT size="2" color="black" face="Courier New"><SPAN lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black; font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 13.3333px; ">The reason behind my question is that we are also using CACTI for monitoring the systems and it shows a 100% CPU load since last night while Nagios didn’t raise any alarm at all. I have to find out whether it was a false alarm or there is a problem with my Nagios setup ..</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>It's confusing to refer to "100% CPU load" since load isn't measured in percentage (at least not in this case, not usually). Referring to it as 100% CPU usage, or utilization, might be better.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>For example, it's possible to have a CPU load of "0" and usage of 100%. How? If I've only got one process making use of CPU cycles, and it's getting 100% of the CPU. If there's nothing else waiting for CPU, the "load" will not be high, even though the usage (from the single running process) will be.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></DIV><DIV>In other words, CPU usage isn't necessarily as important as load is, although it certainly can be a factor in determining the cause of Load (because processes which are waiting on Disk I/O, or swap, also contribute to load).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Hope this helps.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Cheers,</DIV><DIV>D</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Monaco"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Monaco; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Monaco; ">--</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Monaco; min-height: 16px; ; font-family: Monaco; "><BR style="; font-family: Monaco; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Monaco"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Monaco; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Monaco; ">Derek J. 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