Server load question (simple)

I feel dumb asking but...

When I check the processor load of my server and it shows lets say '0.20' does that mean it is using 20% of the processor or less than 1% of it?

I would like to know for both cPanel and Plesk (just in case they are different)

A value of 1.0 means 100% of a single CPU, so 0.20 means 20% of one CPU. However if your server has multiple cores then those need to be considered. 0.20 on a 4-core machine means only 5% of the total is used.

Thank you

So, from what I understood, on a dual core machine 1.0 means 50% of the total is used?

Yes that's what I got from it as well

I have a dual core machine and I managed to get the load up to 3.56....how do you explain that?

BTW the reason I am asking is because Glype (my proxy script) offers a maximum load and I want to know what would be a good value to set it at so I won't be locked out of my server if there is a traffic spike.

The load values can be more than the available CPUs. If this happens, then there's a backlog of instructions because there are too many for the CPUs to handle. Servers can handle high load for a while but not indefinitely.

Originally Posted by Salathe The load values can be more than the available CPUs. If this happens, then there's a backlog of instructions because there are too many for the CPUs to handle. Servers can handle high load for a while but not indefinitely.

I was doing a small manual stress test by loading several pages and it didn't seem to slow down...it didn't seem backlogged at all. The server was responding like it usually would.

In all honesty that load isnt a good indicator of how well the machine is doing. I have seen loads of 15+ and the server runs fine.