how to get the cpu usage of past 10 minutes in python

Question

I am able to get current cpu usage details using following code

import psutil as PSUTIL
PSUTIL.cpu_percent(interval=1)

My question is; how can i get the past 10 minutes cpu usage details?

Answer 1

The idea is to:

1. Make a background task using the threading module, or system service/daemon. Something that works parallel to your main code;
2. Create a timer in the background task. At every timer's tick ask for cpu usage and write it into an array.
3. When main code needs CPU load stats, pass it from the background task by IPC, files, etc.

The exact solution depends on what tools can you use.

Answer 2

Run the python script in background using cronjob
1)Open terminal and type crontab -e
2)Edit the file and write the following code to run the python script in background

*/1 * * * * python /yourpath/yourpythonfile.py 

3) Create yourpythonfile.py and write the following code

import psutil as PSUTIL 
    with open('/yourpath/yourfile.txt', "a") as myfile:
       myfile.write(str(PSUTIL.cpu_percent(interval=1))+"%"'\n')

Answer 3

To measure CPU usage, you need to compare the usage at two given time; you can't get measure point from the past (except if you store it, as @ajsp suggested).

For example:

import psutil
import time

def calculate(t1, t2):
    # from psutil.cpu_percent()
    # see: https://github.com/giampaolo/psutil/blob/master/psutil/__init__.py
    t1_all = sum(t1)
    t1_busy = t1_all - t1.idle
    t2_all = sum(t2)
    t2_busy = t2_all - t2.idle
    if t2_busy <= t1_busy:
        return 0.0
    busy_delta = t2_busy - t1_busy
    all_delta = t2_all - t1_all
    busy_perc = (busy_delta / all_delta) * 100
    return round(busy_perc, 1)

cpu_time_a = (time.time(), psutil.cpu_times())
# your code taking time
cpu_time_b = (time.time(), psutil.cpu_times())
print 'CPU used in %d seconds: %s' % (
    cpu_time_b[0] - cpu_time_a[0],
    calculate(cpu_time_a[1], cpu_time_b[1])
)

Or you could use cpu_percent(interval=600); and if you don't want it to block other code in your script you might want to do it in a separate thread.

But as previously said, in both cases this won't go back in time; just measure CPU time from now to interval.

If you just need to keep track of your CPU usage and don't want to reinvent the wheel, you could use:

• http://www.rrdtool.org/ which provide tools to store and eventually graph metrics such as CPU time
• https://github.com/nicolargo/glances which could be daemonized and you would poll it to get the values you need
• http://dag.wiee.rs/home-made/dstat/
• etc.

Those solutions can help you to save metrics from your system for processing.

Answer 4

You can use os.getloadavg() to find average load on the server during past 1, 5 & 15 minutes.

May be this turns out to be useful for what you intend to do.