Mailscanner and server load

[Ugo Bellavance]

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Dave Filchak wrote:

> I found this thread to be interesting as I have just had to upgrade my
> motherboard and ram because the machine was choking. However, in an effort
> to determine how well the machine is doing now, I wonder if someone would be
> so kind as to comment on the output of free and vmstat 2 I have posted
> below. I was not familiar with these tools so I am not sure how to read them
> so if someone would comment on the perceived performance of my machine based
> on this output and also a brief explanation of how to interpret this output
> (what does it all mean ;-)
>
> Free:
>
>              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> Mem:       1014712     966252      48460          0     142552     467144
> -/+ buffers/cache:     356556     658156
> Swap:      1020088     187928     832160

Here you can see that your physical ram is 1 GB, that you've got 48 MB
free, plus 658 MB free in the kernel buffer/cache.

You are using 187 MB of swap

>
> Vmstat 2:
>
>    procs                      memory      swap          io     system
> cpu
>  r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy
> id
>  1  0  0 187924  48384 142620 467112    1    6    23    39   20    10  4  1
> 4
>  0  0  0 187924  48384 142628 467104    0    0     0    32  106   236  0  0
> 100
>  0  0  0 187924  48384 142628 467104    0    0     0     0  105   226  0  0
> 100
>  1  0  0 187924  48376 142644 467096    0    0     0    88  126   259  0  0
> 100

First column: r : how many processes are waiting for cpu time.  You've
got only 1 or 0 idle system or almost.

Second column: b: how many processes are waiting for i/o operation,
you've got almost nothing ther.

Third column: w : (according to the man page) w: The number of processes
swapped out but otherwise runnable.  This field is calculated, but Linux
never desperation swaps.

Then I look at the si and so columns:

si: Amount of memory swapped in from disk (kB/s).
so: Amount of memory swapped to disk (kB/s).

so you're barely swapping.

For the rest, please see the man page, it is clear and complete.

>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave
>
> PS ... Sorry to jump into this conversation but I wanted my question to be
> in context.

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