Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 23:18 Post subject: What do the load average numbers mean?
Hey,
I can't for the life of me figure out what the load average numbers mean... Normally one would assume that 0,5 = 50% and 1,00 = 100% , atleast in my head.
The only problem with that is that the load average often goes above 1,00 when under heavy load, especially the 1-minute number (the first one right?).
So whats the deal? Which number represents 100% ? I can't find any documention on this at all.
Load averages are exponentially damped averages which reflect the run queue of the processors. Or, the number of processes waiting for CPU time. On Linux, I believe it also includes blocking I/O.
For instance, my CentOS server has two processors. I can comfortably have load averages of 4 or 5 before I need to start worrying. In DD-WRTs case, getting to 1 is okay, but unless it's really heavy load, you might need to look into it.