Understanding load average

For a Linux administrator, load average is one of the most important concepts you'll ever learn. While you may know already that this number represents how much load your system is experiencing, it also represents trending performance as well. Using this number, you'll be able to determine whether your system is being overwhelmed or it's recovering and calming down. Essentially, the load average consists of three numbers, each representing the average load of the system over a specific time frame. The first number represents one minute, the second represents five minutes, and the third represents 15 minutes. There are many ways in which you can view your load average, and it will also be displayed in most system monitors available for Linux. One way to view your load average in a snap is to execute the following command:

cat /proc/loadavg

Viewing the load average

A simpler technique is to use the uptime command. Though the main purpose of the uptime command is to...