1

I have a VPS with a hosting provider. Recently, I discover that my load average is just extremely high. I have a 2 core VPS, and the load average can go up to 9 or 10, as shown below!

enter image description here

I initially thought that this was because my CPU/RAM not enough, however, the VPS provider told me that it could be that my IO load is very heavy ( or other VPS on the same dedicated machine's IO load) is heavy.

I have no way to verify the claim.

Anyway I can check the usage of IO? And can I know whether the high IO usage is due to my VPS, or other VPS cohabitat on the same physical machine?

Improve this question
9
  • You can use vmstat to find out how much I/O your vm is doing. Sadly, OpenVZ doesnt' support iostat or iotop. If your I/O is high, I'd accept the host's explanation. If not, then you are a victim of I/O overload coming from other containers. Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 3:37
  • David, this is the problem here: how can I be sure that it is some contamination from other containers, or my IO load is overflowing me? Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 4:24
  • What difference does it make to you whether the problem is contamination from other containers? What you need to figure out is whether the load you are seeing is justified based on the I/O you are doing. If so, then it's your problem. If not, then it's your host's problem. It's the host's job to figure out why you are seeing a problem you aren't causing, not yours. You just need to figure out if you are causing the problem or not. Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 19:07
  • @DavidSchwartz, how can I figure out is whether the load I see is justified based on the I/O I am doing? I perform one simple database write query, the load average doesn't change much, but it takes a long time for the write query to execute, and around that time, I am not doing any other IO. Commented Apr 11, 2013 at 2:39
  • 2
    Don't argue. If they don't fix the problem, stop doing business with them. Commented Apr 11, 2013 at 3:36

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Looking at the screen-shot you posted I can see that your VPS is on OpenVZ container based virtualization. Unfortunately,there is no way for you check IO stats due to how container based virtualization works. Your host is correct that the IO load will reflect in your load average,however this seems strange. Normally disk IO isn't what pushes you to a high load average,but CPU access or load causes the problem.

I would postulate that your host is giving you a bogus answer to cover up massive over-utilization/overselling or abuse of the node by another client. Your host should be able to give you a better idea on if the high load is caused by Disk IO or CPU , and if they can't I'd suggest finding a new provider. ( I work for a web host and manage OpenVZ nodes as my day job.)

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.