Server Load

Whats a good server load? I installed a new forum, and in the admin panel it lists what the server load is, and under settings it suggests that when the server load is 5 or higher, users will be denied access.

However, the server load was staying around 4.xx, so I'm guessing thats a high load? (since it suggests blocking at 5)

Though, I wasn't sure if that was right, so I logged into ssh, and the server load (for patton), has jumped around from 3.xx to 7.xx. (as I'm typing this, its at 6.xx)

So, whats a good server load? And whats too high that it will cause problems?

If it were your own dedicated server you would like to see it under 1. However on shared servers they can go quite high. You will then see a slow down of course, rather than users being denied access. You may be able to store a lot of the forum in a cache.

As to setting a limit I would not set it too low else no-one well ever get on your forum.

Look at these last few entries:-

06:05:01 up 4 days, 16:06, 6 users, load average: 12.48, 11.78, 9.55
06:25:02 up 4 days, 16:26, 5 users, load average: 7.82, 9.37, 9.89
06:45:03 up 4 days, 16:46, 6 users, load average: 6.66, 6.62, 8.37
07:05:02 up 4 days, 17:06, 7 users, load average: 5.49, 6.34, 6.69
07:25:02 up 4 days, 17:26, 7 users, load average: 8.13, 8.87, 7.49
07:45:02 up 4 days, 17:46, 7 users, load average: 5.19, 6.14, 6.68
08:05:09 up 4 days, 18:06, 7 users, load average: 11.24, 11.45, 9.57
08:25:02 up 4 days, 18:26, 7 users, load average: 6.55, 9.68, 10.08
08:45:03 up 4 days, 18:46, 8 users, load average: 7.63, 7.82, 8.17
09:05:00 up 4 days, 19:06, 8 users, load average: 9.07, 11.88, 9.96

or this one earlier:-
12:25:00 up 3 days, 22:26, 7 users, load average: 29.93, 19.76, 12.68

The time to worry is when they go high and stay high!

If I was filling in that forum setting I would choose 100




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Norm

Opinions are my own views, not DreamHosts'.
I am NOT a DreamHost employee OK!!

You act on my advice at your own risk!

Not sure if your load is all that high, not compared to the load on soto atm...

13:06:04 up 8:41, 2 users, load average: 193.12, 191.59, 188.78

That looks about average.
Must be all those 'uptime' crontabs running.


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Norm

Opinions are my own views, not DreamHosts'.
I am NOT a DreamHost employee OK!!

You act on my advice at your own risk!

In reply to:

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3:06:04 up 8:41, 2 users, load average: 193.12, 191.59, 188.78

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*Ouch*

In my experience, if you notify DreamHost of constant high load figures on your server, they will track down the offending user/script and take steps to reduce the load.

Mark

I would suggest to the dreamhost people that they put a "server load" or "load average" topic in the wiki.

I have only been a dreamhost customer a month, and have never seen my server load average is always greater than 5. and usually around 10. Sometimes things get very slowwwww.

I would concure with the group. Open a support case with the load averages you're seeing.

I experienced the same problems when I signed up. I think they drop new users on the same box until full then continue on to the next... only problem is, we're all new and trying all the whizbang stuff - causing higher than average load.

You may have someone trying out some custom scripts that are really hogging the CPU - causing slowness.

So get a support case open so they can monitor the box more closely and whack the offender's script - or take the user off your box and put them in timeout. :)