What Does The Uptime Command Output Mean??

[rob2000007]

I know that uptime displays user info and process information for the last minuite, five and fifteen.

But what does the process information really mean?

18:46:18 up 7:03, 3 users, load average: 0.28, 0.36, 0.40

I'm trying to use my web server to (almost) capacity before buying another and I'm wondering how much more I can use it based on these numbers.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Heon2574]

man uptime

NAME
uptime - Tell how long the system has been running.

SYNOPSIS
uptime
uptime [-V]

DESCRIPTION
uptime gives a one line display of the following information. The cur-
rent time, how long the system has been running, how many users are
currently logged on, and the system load averages for the past 1, 5,
and 15 minutes.

This is the same information contained in the header line displayed by
w(1).

[markkuk]

Load average below 1 means that the system is idle at least some of the time. See these pages for more (much more!) info:
http://www.teamquest.com/resources/gunther/ldavg1.shtml
http://www.teamquest.com/resources/gunther/ldavg2.shtml

[kg4cbk]

top will give you all the info uptime does plus additional info you need to decide if/when your system is reaching maximum load.

[rob2000007]

man uptime

Tried that first - that's where I got the other information from But hey, thanks for the reply anyway.


markkuk - thanks for the 2 great links! That explained it.

kg4cbk - top is a great utility for what I need! Thanks for the reference. It's perfect!!