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I have a machine running a very small java listener and no body is using this machine but load is like staying between 0.9 to 0.6 for nearly sometime? IS it any indication here? What could be causing to go high when there is very little activity on the server? I saw a lot of events/3,hald-addon-stor,init,kthreadd, miniserv.pl etc running what are there?

top - 21:43:46 up 1 day,  7:50,  1 user,  load average: 0.92, 0.40, 0.20
Tasks: 251 total,   1 running, 249 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.1%us,  0.0%sy,  0.0%ni, 99.8%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   7992392k total,  5426492k used,  2565900k free,   203156k buffers
Swap:  6094840k total,        0k used,  6094840k free,  4605780k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
  434 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.3  0.0   0:29.63 scsi_eh_4
 6168 root      20   0 20204 1248 1068 S  0.3  0.0   0:33.11 hald-addon-stor
 9021 root      20   0 15152 1348  932 R  0.3  0.0   0:01.33 top
 9162 root      20   0     0    0    0 Z  0.3  0.0   0:00.04 miniserv. <defunct>
    1 root      20   0 19332 1528 1220 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.33 init
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 kthreadd
    3 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
    4 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.25 ksoftirqd/0
    5 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
    6 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.08 watchdog/0
    7 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.09 migration/1
    8 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/1
    9 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.21 ksoftirqd/1
   10 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.08 watchdog/1
   11 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/2
   12 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/2

cpu info (I am having 8 cpus)

processor   : 7
vendor_id   : GenuineIntel
cpu family  : 6
model       : 44
model name  : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           E5640  @ 2.67GHz
stepping    : 2
cpu MHz     : 1596.000
cache size  : 12288 KB
physical id : 0
siblings    : 8
core id     : 10
cpu cores   : 4
apicid      : 21
initial apicid  : 21
fpu     : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level : 11
wp      : yes
flags       : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips    : 5333.16
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
newbie14
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2 Answers2

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Take a look at this excellent article explaining Load Averages : http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2009/07/31/understanding-load-averages

0.9 Load Average Value is not a bad value if you have more than one CPU Core and chances are that your ~8 Gb Memory Machine has at least 2 CPU Cores.

m0ntassar
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  • @monstasar how to check on the cores. I know I have 8cpus with 8Gb ram. What worries me this things keep running events/3,hald-addon-stor,init,kthreadd, miniserv.pl etc running what are there? Why even there is little activity but the load is on 0.9? – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 14:19
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    Type "1" inside of `top` to show all of the CPU cores. – ewwhite May 28 '12 at 14:22
  • I could see the 8cpus and I have added to my question the one of the cpus details. Looks like I have 4cores for each is that good enough? – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 14:31
  • 8 CPUS x 4 cores => Max "Safe load" Value = 32 This means yous shouldn't worry about Your LoadAverage util it reachs 29 Looks Like your server is dramatically oversized (unless you are willing to deploy more services and apps) – m0ntassar May 28 '12 at 14:36
  • Yes we are going to run this server just for httpd and with a java listener which will connect to nearly 1000 devices which will send data on 1 minute interval. Another server will be just holding the mysqld. Is it oversize? – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 14:42
  • well, wait until the 1k devices get connected to your server I said it looks like it was oversized reguarding the current LoadAverage, I didn't know you are going to connect 1k device to it :) – m0ntassar May 28 '12 at 14:52
  • The devices will be connecting over TCP/IP and sending data to my java listener. – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 15:44
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  • events/3,kthreadd e.a. are basic system daemons
  • hald-addon-stor is part of the "hardware abstraction layer" allowing you to automount USB disk etc.
  • init: is the basic process from which all other are spawned
  • miniserv.pl is part of webmin and appears to have crashed from the top output (the process is "defunct")
Bram
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  • @bam should I do something about the miniserv.pl should I disabled it? How to disable webmin? – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 14:28
  • `chkconfig webmin off` – Tom May 28 '12 at 14:37
  • @tom is it possible to fully removed is it? How do you guys know that miniserv.pl is crashed? – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 14:43
  • defunct just means its finished execution, the entry allows you to read its details. webmin is a service, so it might be one of the child worker threads of webmin that has been reaped. (it might have actually crashed, and you can check the `/var/webmin/miniserv.error` file for errors – Tom May 28 '12 at 15:08
  • So since is crashed better to remove it. So how to completely removed it? – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 15:45
  • Check the process tree to see what its parent process is. If it's `init`, you have a system-level problem. Otherwise, the problem is what the parent process. (Most likely, it terminated normally and its parent crashed, or is just lazy about reaping.) – David Schwartz May 28 '12 at 18:39
  • How do you check the parent process is it by just looking the pid or any other command to run? – newbie14 May 28 '12 at 23:16
  • Before removing it you'd better check if you are using it or not. I'd suggest to check the [webmin website](http://www.webmin.com/) to see if it looks familiar. It is a web based tool to manage your server. Just because it crashed doesn't mean it should be uninstalled per se. – Bram May 29 '12 at 07:07