Hello Paul, On Mon, May 07, 2018 at 12:36:43AM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote: > Assaf Gordon wrote: [...] > > It won't matter to a single user on a desktop, but imagine > > a shared server at a university, when all of a sudden a sysadmin > > might see a very very high %SYS load - with almost no way to disagnose > > what's going on. > > Why won't sysadmins be able to diagnose this? Isn't %SYS time accounted for?
It is, and there are certainly tools to do so. But I think (based on my somewhat limited experience) that it is harder to diagnose casually. Most tools are geared towards showning user-mode load. I believe that a common rule-of-thumb is that long-term sustained high %SYS load typically indicates a serious problem (veteran sysadmins are welcomed to chime in and offer their opinion). regards, - assaf
