Weird high load on server

Dan Track dan.track at gmail.com
Tue Jul 19 13:49:18 UTC 2005


On 7/19/05, nodata <fedora at nodata.co.uk> wrote:
> > Hi Guys,
> >
> > Hope you experts can help me out here.
> >
> > Basically I have server running at a very high load 2.44, although
> > nothing is noticably high when using top. There aren't any processes
> > running on the box except the standard linux OS tools. This box is
> > used for backup, and only becomes active during the night.
> >
> > Its a compaq dl380 with a raid 5 configuration.
> >
> > Can anyone suggest what I can do to find out why the load is high?
> >
> > Thanks for your help in advance.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> 
> I bet you have hanging nfs mounts.
> If the box is constantly at a load of around 2.44, and isn't sluggish, I
> wouldn't worry.
> 
> Look at iostat, sar, etc. to find out why the load is like that.
> 


Hi

I've looked at these but can't see anything. The server doesn't mount
or export any filesystems using nfs or any other protocol. If it helps
here are the various outputs:

 uptime
 14:45:49  up 62 days, 43 min,  2 users,  load average: 1.46, 1.57, 1.59

sar 5 10
Linux 2.4.21-27.0.4.ELsmp (orion.gs.moneyextra.com)     19/07/05

14:46:02          CPU     %user     %nice   %system     %idle
14:46:07          all      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
14:46:12          all      0.00      0.00      0.10     99.90
14:46:17          all      0.00      0.00      0.10     99.90
14:46:22          all      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
14:46:27          all      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
14:46:32          all      0.00      0.00      0.10     99.90
14:46:37          all      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
14:46:42          all      0.10      0.00      0.31     99.59
14:46:47          all      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
14:46:52          all      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
Average:          all      0.01      0.00      0.06     99.93

vmstat -a
procs                      memory      swap          io     system         cpu
 r  b   swpd   free  inact active   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy wa id
 0  0      0  15404 189668 202836    0    0     3     1    0     2  3  4  1  3

free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           498        483         15          0        128        301
-/+ buffers/cache:         53        445
Swap:         1027          0       1027

iostat
Linux 2.4.21-27.0.4.ELsmp (orion.gs.moneyextra.com)     19/07/05

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice    %sys   %idle
           3.11    0.00    3.72   93.17

Device:            tps   Blk_read/s   Blk_wrtn/s   Blk_read   Blk_wrtn
/dev/ida/c0d0    19.68       427.93       279.15 2147483647 1400883506
/dev/ida/c0d0p1
                  0.00         0.22         0.00    1087144       8986
/dev/ida/c0d0p2
                  0.65         3.72        10.24   18680778   51401528
/dev/ida/c0d0p3
                  0.00         0.00         0.00        248          0
/dev/ida/c0d0p4
                  0.00         0.00         0.00          0          0
/dev/ida/c0d0p5
                  0.74         3.90         6.88   19570498   34517568
/dev/ida/c0d0p6
                  0.00         0.00         0.00        168          0
/dev/ida/c0d0p7
                  0.00         0.00         0.00        168          0
/dev/ida/c0d0p8
                 18.29       427.93       262.03 2147483647 1314955424

top
 14:47:51  up 62 days, 45 min,  2 users,  load average: 1.73, 1.61, 1.59
61 processes: 60 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  cpu    user    nice  system    irq  softirq  iowait    idle
           total    0.4%    0.0%    0.0%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   99.5%
           cpu00    0.9%    0.0%    0.0%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   99.0%
           cpu01    0.0%    0.0%    0.0%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%  100.0%
Mem:   510400k av,  495224k used,   15176k free,       0k shrd,  132000k buff
                    203040k actv,  182824k in_d,    6852k in_c
Swap: 1052592k av,       0k used, 1052592k free                  308668k cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME CPU COMMAND
13100 root      20   0  1092 1092   888 R     0.4  0.2   0:00   0 top
    1 root      15   0   512  512   452 S     0.0  0.1   1:18   0 init
    2 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   0 migration/0
    3 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   1 migration/1
    4 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   1 keventd
    5 root      34  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00   0 ksoftirqd/0
    6 root      34  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00   1 ksoftirqd/1
    9 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   0 bdflush
    7 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0  70:21   0 kswapd
    8 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0  23:07   1 kscand
   10 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   3:30   0 kupdated
   11 root      25   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   0 mdrecoveryd
   18 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   0 ahc_dv_0
   19 root      25   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   0 scsi_eh_0
   23 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   2:30   1 kjournald
  192 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   0 kjournald
  193 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0  13:57   1 kjournald
  194 root      15   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   4:18   0 kjournald
  568 root      15   0   576  576   492 S     0.0  0.1   0:57   0 syslogd
  572 root      15   0   472  472   408 S     0.0  0.0   0:00   1 klogd
  582 root      15   0   452  452   388 S     0.0  0.0   5:33   1 irqbalance
  599 rpc       15   0   600  600   524 S     0.0  0.1   0:22   0 portmap
  618 rpcuser   25   0   720  720   644 S     0.0  0.1   0:00   0 rpc.statd
  629 root      15   0   400  400   344 S     0.0  0.0   0:18   0 mdadm
  712 root      15   0  3160 3160  2024 S     0.0  0.6   3:22   1 snmpd
  713 root      25   0  3160 3160  2024 S     0.0  0.6   0:00   0 snmpd
  722 root      15   0  1576 1576  1324 S     0.0  0.3   4:58   1 sshd

Anyone have any ideas. Literally the box is sitting there not doing
anything that has been scheduled.

This happens occassionally then the load spontaneously goes down. Do
you reckon it has something to do with the raid 5?

Thanks
Dan




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