On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 05:00:56PM -0400, Daniel Ouellet wrote: > Hi, > > I couldn't find witch of the three possible value the -l option of the > cron refer to in the man page and look at the code in > /src/usr.sbin/cron/atrun.c that use the getloadavg(&la, 1) to get that > value, the first of 3 if I am not mistaken. I had to look at the man > page for getloadavg to know that as well. > > So, am I correct to think that the load average in cronjob ONLY use the > 1 minute average, always? > > It 1 minute average is always assume by default every time load average > is used system wide? > > May be if I may suggest to to have the man page changed from > > -l load_avg > If the current load average is greater.... > > to > > -l load_avg > If the current (1 minute) load average is greater.... > > That's fine if that's just me that didn't get it. I just thought that it > would be nice not to have to dig to find what I think it the right > answer assuming I find it correctly.? > > I can send a diff if that's not stupid to do, but I really had to dig > this one up to know. Google and the man page didn't provide the answer > to me right away anyway, but the code did. (;> > > I was hoping to have the possibility to use the 15 minutes average here > in cronjob. Not the end of the world and I can live without it. But I > didn't get the answer from the man page however in term of what the load > average was. I guess most likely it's always assume to be the case > system wide? > > Could also be my English as if I was native, may be the "current load > average" always refer to the smallest of the three possible values that > are all current moving load average anyway. > > Just a thought. > > Thanks > > Daniel
i asked todd miller about this, and he says he interprets "current load average" to be the 1 minute average (closest to now). i think that's a reasonable interpretation, so i don;t think we need to change the description. having said that, uvm(9) talks about "current load averages" (plural), so i need to find out if that's something worth tweaking. jmc
