Reading Plesk server stats

[dombort]

Hello all,

I'm pay for a managed coldfusion application server hosted by a well known provider.
It's not cheap, but the customer service seems quite good.

One thing I'm trying to get a handle of is the server stats.. because I'm guessing that either the load is getting too high or there is not enough memory, or swap memory to run everything at top speed.

Problem is - i don't know how to interpret the stats. Nor can I find a good resource to help me do this.

Does anyone know how to interpret:

CPU GenuineIntel, Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz
Version psa v7.1.5_build71041019.17 os_RedHat el3
OS Linux 2.4.20-021stab022.11.777-enterprise

CPU usage
Last 1 minute 0.25
Last 5 minutes 0.10
Last 15 minutes 0.09


Memory Usage
Total: 5.67 GB

Used: 5.51 GB

Free: 159.96 MB

Shared: 0 B

Buffer: 173.27 MB

Cached: 1.40 GB

Usage: 97.24%


Swap usage
Total: 8.00 GB

Used: 9.52 MB

Free: 7.99 GB

Usage:0.12%


Basically, I'm wondering if i should upgrade my RAM level? To me it looks like the server load is low, but the memory usage is high. But thats just a guess. Any ideas?

Thanks for any and all comments

Dom

 

[Ales]

I think that a search on the forum will bring up some past threads about this.

But in short - linux will use all the memory it can to speed up various processes. It's perfectly normal to have your RAM filled almost to the max and even if you add more, it will do the same.

The thing to look for is swap usage, which is low on your server. If it was high, it would mean that you're low on RAM so the OS needs to use the HDD to swap data. That slows things down a lot.

Anyway, you should use the command 'top' in shell to get more info. This stat screen in Plesk is more of a cosmetic thing.