hostload

Overview ¶

Command hostload says how busy a Linux host's CPUs are right now, from two readings of /proc/stat, and which CPUs are the idlest -- the check to run before a measurement, and the CPU to pin it to.

It exists because the load average answered the wrong question twice. On a Loongson (cfarm401) it read 146 while every CPU was idle: 146 processes stuck in uninterruptible sleep count toward the load and use no CPU. On a Zen 3 guest (cfarm421) a quiet load hid a third of the CPU time going to other users' niced jobs. Both were found only by diffing /proc/stat by hand, in throwaway scripts; this is that diff with a home and tests.