CPU usage accuracy puzzlement
 

Hi fellas,

I'm trying to write a script to capture the CPU usage for a particular server. I have tried iostat, vmstat and top, but in batch mode they always give a consistent value. For example, if I just run 'iostat -c' once, it will return the same value, no matter how many times I run it. However, if I use 'iostat -c 1 5' for example, the first value returned will be that same value, but the remaining values will fluctuate wildly.
The same behaviour is also observed with vmstat and top -b.

Can anyone tell me whether this is normal behaviour?

Yes, it's absolutely normal behavior.

And, in fact, a good (and often stated) rule of thumb is to *always* use "-5" (or "-3", or whatever you prefer), then always *disregard* the first value:

http://perfhints.blogspot.com/2009/02/vmstat.html

I don't know about the others, but for vmstat this behaviour is described on the man page.

Thanks for the link, helped me loads.

:D