How to Get a Email when System Load Average is High ? (Crontab)


In this post and this, we know we can use several methods to check the system load average for Linux OS. We also know that, similar to this post (get a email when VPS is rebooted), we can setup a crontab job that runs at the given interval.

So, we can get a email to alert us that the system load average is high (exceeded a threshold).

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 */2 * * * * /var/www/checkload.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
 */2 * * * * /var/www/checkload.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

The above runs every 2 minutes, so we need to create this checkload.sh using your favorite text editor.

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#!/bin/bash
 
load=`echo $(cat /proc/loadavg | awk '{print $1}') \> 3 | bc -l`
if [ "$load" -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "Your Server Load Alert Needs Attention! " | mail -s "System Load Alert $load" mail@helloacm.com
        echo "Alert email sent to [email protected]"
fi
 
echo "System Load $(cat /proc/loadavg)"
#!/bin/bash

load=`echo $(cat /proc/loadavg | awk '{print $1}') \> 3 | bc -l`
if [ "$load" -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "Your Server Load Alert Needs Attention! " | mail -s "System Load Alert $load" [email protected]
        echo "Alert email sent to [email protected]"
fi

echo "System Load $(cat /proc/loadavg)"

We use awk to extract the first number (similar as the split function) and pipe in the calculator bc if it is larger than 3 (changed this accordingly). If the load average is more than 3, then the result will be 1 (-ne 0). Then we send a email.

The VPS I am using is from QuickHOSTUK, which has 4 cores, setting the load average threshold to 3 should be reasonable for now.

PS: You can use https://helloacm.com/api/cat-proc/?file=loadavg API from this page to run the command cat /proc/loadavg to see the load average of the VPS current blog is on.

This online utility helps configuration of the crontab.

–EOF (The Ultimate Computing & Technology Blog) —

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  1. Special Monkey

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