What may be causing IO spikes?

Hi Guys,

I have a 720 linode which at regular period spikes on CPU usage and IO usage (but not network traffic). How do I know which process is causing such spike? The spike is semi-regular (though not perfectly predictable) though I do get one such spike per day.

I am attaching the sceenshot of one such spike here http://i42.tinypic.com/255jayb.jpg

I have a daily backup process which runs once daily. But the timing of the spike doesn't match exactly with it. What could be causing such a spike? Any clue.

Thanks.

7 Replies

Any clue how to diagnose whether it is indeed log rotation and how to fix it?

If it is indeed log rotation, which seems reasonable, then there's not really a problem to be fixed.

You can test by simply disabling log rotation for a few days.

Looks like log rotation, you should google around for server monitoring software, they can often email you when the load spikes with details of what's running.

I had exactly the same problem as of two days ago - I'll update this post with the outcome.

So far, disabling the logrotate cron temporarily fixed the problem - now to track down what is actually happening.

–-

[edit]

So I tried running logrotate - /usr/sbin/logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.conf and it finished very quickly… as in < 2 seconds. Now I'm confused…

So I've installed Munin along with the multimemory plugin and re-enabled the logrotate cron. I guess I'll have to wait and see tomorrow…

Hi

Did you solve your problem ? I'm having the same problems with random IO spikes, or CPU spikes.

greg

@EtherealMind:

Hi

Did you solve your problem ? I'm having the same problems with random IO spikes, or CPU spikes.

greg

Which one? Or do you mean both?

Reply

Please enter an answer
Tips:

You can mention users to notify them: @username

You can use Markdown to format your question. For more examples see the Markdown Cheatsheet.

> I’m a blockquote.

I’m a blockquote.

[I'm a link] (https://www.google.com)

I'm a link

**I am bold** I am bold

*I am italicized* I am italicized

Community Code of Conduct