On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 07:25 -0800, Barton Robinson wrote:
> Sorry Christian, but with the latest and greatest, there are many cases where 
> Linux and
> TOP now seriously under report utilization (I think by factor of 5 in the 
> lab, and by 4 in
> a production server). Not sure we've bothered to report the details since 
> this problem
> would not impact our users.  So the data still can not be used for serious 
> performance
> work, capacity planning or accounting/chargeback.  It's like putting gas in a 
> car, and the
> price per "unit" varies with the number of other people wanting gas.  Doesn't 
> lead one to
> trust the instrumentation.

1) Rob, please report these discrepancies. The numbers linux reports
should be correct.
2) The factor of 4-5 is based on what numbers exactly? I doubt that you
get that discrepancy if you are running a cpu bound linux process that
uses more than a few percent of cpu. As already pointer out the
situation that started this thread is very likely a multi threaded
program and top aggregates the cputime.
3) Top is by no means a monitoring tool. You can use it to get a rough
snapshot of the current situation but please don't use it instead of a
real monitor because top itself uses a lot of cpu.

--
blue skies,
  Martin.

"Reality continues to ruin my life." - Calvin.

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