How is my CPU doing before installing Automation Suite or Orchestrator HAA?
To perform CPU testing in Red Hat Linux, use various tools and methods to check the CPU's performance, temperature, and other attributes. Here are some common approaches:
- Using the lscpu Command:
The lscpu command provides detailed information about the CPU(s) in your system. It displays information like the number of CPUs, CPU family, model, CPU flags, and more. To use it, open a terminal and simply type:
lscpu
- Stress Testing with stress Tool:
The stress tool is used to simulate high CPU and memory loads. Install it using the package manager (e.g., yum or dnf) if it is not already installed:
sudo yum install stress-ng
Then, stress the CPU with a command like:
# stress-ng --matrix 1 -t 1m - This will stress 1 CPU core for 60 seconds
# stress-ng --matrix 0 -t 1m – This will stress multiple CPU cores for 60 seconds
Note: Make sure to monitor the CPU usage while running this test using a tool like top or htop in a different terminal.
- Temperature Monitoring:
To monitor CPU temperature, use tools like lm_sensors and sensors-detect to detect and configure your sensors. Install them with:
sudo yum install lm_sensors
After installation, you can run sensors-detect to detect sensors and configure them. Then, use the sensors command to check the temperature.
Note: This temperature monitoring is more for On-Prem servers that host vms such as VMware or similar, this is also available in the control-panel terminal but is something that can get down CPU performance, is very hard this can happen but I thought is something good to keep in mind. If using Azure or AWS, this will not work.
- Performance Monitoring with top and htop:
The top and htop commands provide real-time CPU usage and process information. Use them to monitor CPU usage and identify any processes that are consuming significant CPU resources.
top
htop
In the following screenshot, note the load average.
Load average is a traffic indicator for the computer. It tells how busy the computer is with tasks. It is measured in three numbers: a short-term number (1 minute), a medium-term number (5 minutes), and a long-term number (15 minutes).
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If the numbers are close to the number of CPUs the computer has, it means the computer is quite busy.
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If they're much higher than the number of CPUs, the computer is overloaded, and things might slow down.
To monitor when it is a little high:
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Check the load average with the uptime command or top
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Keep an eye on these numbers. If they're consistently higher than the number of CPUs, it is time to investigate.
A high load average can be due to many things, like too many running programs or tasks waiting for resources. By watching these numbers, catch issues before they cause serious problems.
These methods will help to test and monitor the CPU in a Red Hat-based Linux distribution like CentOS or RHEL. Depending on the specific use case, choose one or more of these methods to assess CPU performance and stability. Also it is recommended to create an additional server for all this testing, before deploying AS Servers or Orchestrator HAA servers to make ensure installing something that can break AS instance or similar.