Load averages on Linux

[corey_james]

We have a linux server at work that runs at a constant load average of 70-85.
This strikes me as VERY odd as this number is awfully high for a server that is still extremely responsive. Even stranger is that the cpu idle time ( shown by top ) shows that all 4 of the cpus are sitting at 90%+ idle time.

I've never seen a unix ( or unix-like ) system get a load average above 6. Is the calculation linux uses for load average different from *BSD and solaris or is this system just a little funky?

[J65nko]

In most cases the load average figure is meaningless. See the following threads from http://bsdforums.org

• Trying to Understand My Server
• FreeBSD 6.2 Server... High cpu loads
• New install OPenBSD 4.1 and high load

[18Googol2]

Originally Posted by corey_james

We have a linux server at work that runs at a constant load average of 70-85.
This strikes me as VERY odd as this number is awfully high for a server that is still extremely responsive. Even stranger is that the cpu idle time ( shown by top ) shows that all 4 of the cpus are sitting at 90%+ idle time.

I've never seen a unix ( or unix-like ) system get a load average above 6. Is the calculation linux uses for load average different from *BSD and solaris or is this system just a little funky?

cpu load and cpu usage are not neccesarily the same. The load average is simply the number of jobs the cpu needs to execute within certain period of time. The job may be very intensive, may be not. If not, thats why the load average is high but the system is still responsive.

I know there was a forum under DoS (both distributed and non-distributed), the load average reported went over 100.