MarkoVujovic.com – Marko Vujovic's blog about web development and technology

How do you find the CPU load of a linux server?

1) uptime (1, 5 and 15 minute load averages). [root@test ~]$ uptime 19:58:05 up 270 days, 2:38, 2 users, load average: 2.55, 2.37, 1.87 Tip: Systems seem to be more responsive under CPU-bound load than when under I/O-bound load.

Which process is causing the high CPU load?

If the load is CPU-bound, use top to display which processes are consuming the most CPU. top sorts processes by their CPU usage by default. Hit the F key to change to a screen there you can choose the sort column.

Is the system currently swapping?

You can use vmstat to determine if a server is currently swapping. The two columns under “swap” – “si” shows you swap in “so” shows you swap out Swap in/out numbers should be zero. If they are greater than zero, the system is swapping. Linux vmstat Command

Which process is causing the high Memory load?

If the load is RAM-bound, use top to display which processes are consuming the most Memory. To sort top by memory, hit M key on your keyboard which sorts by RAM usage. Hit the F key to change to a screen there you can choose the sort column.