This article shows how to make a graph showing a Linux machine’s load average.
The Linux machine is using collectd to gather the load average and send it to the time series back-end – InfluxDB. Grafana is used to visualize the data stored in the time series back-end InfluxDB and organize the graphs in panels and dashboards. Check out the previous articles on the subject to install and configure such software to collect, store and visualize data – Monitor and analyze with Grafana, influxdb 1.8 and collectd under CentOS Stream 9 and Monitor and analyze with Grafana, influxdb 1.8 and collectd under Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
The collectd daemon is used to gather data on the Linux system and to send it to the back-end InfluxDB.
Key knowledge for the load collectd plugin
- The collectd plugin Load official page – https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:Load
- The Load plugin options – https://collectd.org/documentation/manpages/collectd.conf.5.shtml#plugin_load
- to enable the load plugin, load the plugin with the load directive in /etc/collectd.conf
LoadPlugin load
- The Load plugin collects data every 10 seconds.
- load_longterm, load_midterm, load_shortterm – 3 gauge values are saved in the database.
- Gauge value – a metric, which value that can go up and down.
A GAUGE value is simply stored as-is. This is the right choice for values which may increase as well as decrease, such as temperatures or the amount of memory used.
- To cross check the value, the user can use the uptime command under Linux or /proc/loadavg
[root@srv ~]# uptime 23:08:09 up 52 min, 2 users, load average: 1.00, 0.77, 0.38 [root@srv ~]# cat /proc/loadavg 1.00 0.77 0.38 2/176 1900