average cpu load = 3% is that high?

[adam]

i am running the perfect debian setup (pretty much from the guide). The only differences is vhcs2 is running my virtual hosting. I don't have anything too funky running so i am wondering if this average of 3% all the time is quite high for a pentium 2.4ghz with 1gb of ram?

ps aux tells me that

root 4261 3.4 0.1 7300 1912 ? R Sep12 1114:16 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r -a rimap -O 127.0.0.1
root 4262 3.4 0.1 7300 1920 ? R Sep12 1119:30 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r -a rimap -O 127.0.0.1

www-data 15880 0.4 1.4 27680 15228 ? S 23:31 0:06 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 15916 0.3 1.5 28100 15680 ? S 23:31 0:05 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16003 0.3 1.4 27656 15148 ? S 23:31 0:04 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
amavis 16056 0.0 3.0 34248 31644 ? S 23:35 0:00 amavisd (child)
www-data 16661 0.5 1.4 27172 14680 ? S 23:46 0:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16663 0.3 1.2 25576 12876 ? S 23:46 0:02 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16686 0.3 1.2 25648 13136 ? S 23:48 0:01 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16820 0.3 1.2 25608 13004 ? S 23:51 0:01 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16821 0.3 1.1 24740 12308 ? S 23:51 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16822 0.4 1.2 25600 13044 ? S 23:51 0:01 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16945 0.4 1.1 24732 12064 ? S 23:54 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16976 0.6 1.3 26032 13384 ? S 23:55 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL
www-data 16991 0.5 1.1 24540 11860 ? S 23:55 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start -DSSL


these are the main processes.


Also, my system ram only ever has about 20mb free? Is this efficient use of ram , i.e using ALL the ram or is it quite high too?

the server seems to be running ok though.

[Ben]

Linux tries to allocate as much as making sense and buffers many things. For you it looks like the ram is completely used...
(more: cat /proc/meminfo)

[falko]

Also, my system ram only ever has about 20mb free? Is this efficient use of ram , i.e using ALL the ram or is it quite high too?

As Ben said, Linux caches lots of things, so your memory usage is ok.

[adam]

what about the cpu use though?

[Ben]

in my eyes 3% is not very high, but you have to distinguish load from cpuusage.
Next thing is, what applications are running on your server and the intensity they are used... so you can't say a cpu usage of x percent is high or low without knowing what really happens on that machine (even saying there are some webpages doing some "simple" DB-requests is too imprecise...)

[adam]

yeah thats why i pasted the output of ps aux and listed the things that seemed to be taking up the most processing time. You can see ther that saslauthd is taking up 3.4% all the time .

[falko]

I think your system is running fine. Nothing unusual here. :)

[adam]

if i do a top command i get 3 processes for saslauthd

under %cpu all 3 processes are over 30.

the Cpu(s): reads 95-99% most of the time.

IS this defintely ok?

[falko]

Can you post your top output?

[adam]

top - 17:57:23 up 26 days, 3:36, 1 user, load average: 3.54, 3.46, 3.38
Tasks: 78 total, 5 running, 73 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 95.4% us, 3.7% sy, 0.0% ni, 0.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.5% hi, 0.5% si Mem: 1027912k total, 1014788k used, 13124k free, 72776k buffers
Swap: 2096472k total, 0k used, 2096472k free, 695556k cached
Unknown command - try 'h' for help
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
4264 root 25 0 7300 1916 6908 R 26.5 0.2 2797:44 saslauthd
4261 root 25 0 7300 1912 6908 R 23.8 0.2 2793:09 saslauthd
4262 root 25 0 7300 1920 6908 R 23.3 0.2 2798:22 saslauthd
19070 www-data 16 0 25800 12m 19m S 4.6 1.2 0:00.10 apache2
18998 www-data 15 0 25752 12m 19m S 4.1 1.3 0:00.36 apache2
18414 www-data 15 0 25680 12m 19m S 2.7 1.3 0:02.17 apache2
18500 www-data 15 0 25648 12m 19m S 2.7 1.3 0:01.60 apache2 18880 www-data 15 0 25688 12m 19m S 2.3 1.3 0:00.32 apache2
18833 www-data 15 0 25948 13m 19m S 1.8 1.3 0:00.53 apache2
18956 www-data 15 0 24816 11m 19m S 1.8 1.2 0:00.28 apache2
19043 www-data 15 0 24792 11m 19m S 1.8 1.2 0:00.10 apache2
17241 www-data 15 0 25840 12m 19m S 1.4 1.3 0:05.08 apache2
17986 www-data 15 0 25564 12m 19m S 1.4 1.3 0:02.68 apache2
28587 root 16 0 23608 10m 19m S 0.5 1.0 0:03.13 apache2
19057 root 16 0 2064 1056 1852 R 0.5 0.1 0:00.01 top
1 root 16 0 1504 512 1352 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.19 init
2 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0
3 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 ksoftirqd/0
4 root 5 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.84 events/0
5 root 6 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
6 root 15 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpid
37 root 5 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.16 kblockd/0
49 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:10.96 kswapd0
50 root 5 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/0
186 root 25 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kseriod
315 root 16 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 1:44.50 kjournald
1286 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khubd
3946 root 16 0 2260 796 2092 S 0.0 0.1 0:30.36 syslogd
3949 root 16 0 2384 1492 1344 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.54 klogd
3967 amavis 16 0 33852 30m 5220 S 0.0 3.0 0:05.55 amavisd-new
3976 clamav 16 0 51504 31m 3812 S 0.0 3.1 3:11.42 clamd
4017 clamav 15 0 4244 1628 3888 S 0.0 0.2 0:02.77 freshclam
4051 root 19 0 1496 444 1344 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 inetd
4260 root 16 0 7300 1920 6908 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.01 saslauthd
4263 root 15 0 7300 1920 6908 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.01 saslauthd
4298 daemon 16 0 1684 628 1520 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 atd
4310 root 16 0 1492 468 1336 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 vhcs2_daemon
4341 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 getty
4347 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 getty
4348 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 getty
4349 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 getty
4350 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 getty
4356 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 getty
5192 root 15 0 2476 732 2164 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.04 couriertcpd
5194 root 15 0 1672 464 1360 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.03 courierlogger
5205 root 16 0 2476 732 2164 S 0.0 0.1 0:02.99 couriertcpd
5207 root 15 0 1672 464 1360 S 0.0 0.0 0:03.28 courierlogger
14981 root 25 0 3800 1332 3556 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.01 mysqld_safe


here it is :)

[falko]

top - 17:57:23 up 26 days, 3:36, 1 user, load average: 3.54, 3.46, 3.38
Ok, your system load is not 3%, but more than 300%!


Cpu(s): 95.4% us, 3.7% sy, 0.0% ni, 0.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.5% hi, 0.5% si [/CODE]
95.4% is too much. I guess there's a problem with your saslauthd. What's in your mail log?

[adam]

Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: Connection, ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174]
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGIN: DEBUG: ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174], command=USER
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGIN: DEBUG: ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174], command=PASS
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGIN: DEBUG: ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174], username=info@todiefor.nu
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: authdaemon: starting client module
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: authdaemon: ACCEPT, username info@todiefor.nu
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGIN, user=info@todiefor.nu, ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174]
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGOUT, user=info@todiefor.nu, ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174], top=0, retr=0, time=0
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: Connection, ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174]
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGIN: DEBUG: ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174], command=USER
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGIN: DEBUG: ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174], command=PASS
Oct 9 15:13:41 viking courierpop3login: LOGIN: DEBUG: ip=[::ffff:81.234.251.174], username=info@todiefor.se


i get alot of this. but other than that its just the general log of what goes in and out the mail system.

urgh help!

i've stopped the service and CPU went down to 0% and the load decreased.

I've restarted it and will monitor it and see what happens.


OK - 20 odd minutes later and it seems to have settled down. Even some ram has freed up. The cpu fluctuates depending on the apache2 load.


top - 15:44:46 up 27 days, 1:24, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.11, 0.66
Tasks: 79 total, 2 running, 77 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 15.2% us, 4.0% sy, 0.0% ni, 79.8% id, 0.7% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.3% si
Mem: 1027912k total, 886476k used, 141436k free, 67696k buffers
Swap: 2096472k total, 0k used, 2096472k free, 593604k cached

[falko]

OK - 20 odd minutes later and it seems to have settled down. Even some ram has freed up. The cpu fluctuates depending on the apache2 load.


top - 15:44:46 up 27 days, 1:24, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.11, 0.66
Tasks: 79 total, 2 running, 77 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 15.2% us, 4.0% sy, 0.0% ni, 79.8% id, 0.7% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.3% si
Mem: 1027912k total, 886476k used, 141436k free, 67696k buffers
Swap: 2096472k total, 0k used, 2096472k free, 593604k cached

That looks much better now. :)