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uptimes!
- Thread starter vniow
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My uptimes are never that great - like right now, my uptime is 19 hours and 28 minutes - nothing to brag about. I screw with my computer as a hobby, try tons of new stuff, install/uninstall software, whatever, so I'm always restarting my iMac. It hasn't been shut down for a good long while (well, there was a power outage not too long ago, if you call that shut down), but I end up restarting my computer before it ever gets to even 7 days up.
hm...
I got 10 days 16:28 hours...but...
Only reason that its not many many months is software update...
My laptop is the same
Gotta love OSX
I got 10 days 16:28 hours...but...
Only reason that its not many many months is software update...
My laptop is the same
Gotta love OSX
There is nothing wrong if you see "2 users", but I can't tell what constitutes a "user". For example, my uptime currently says "5 users" even though I'm the only one logged in. I did some experiments and found that it doesn't seem to be any of these:
* the number of active applications
* the number of open windows
* the number of active processes
* the number of distinct process owners
* the number of active threads
* the number of connected computers on your network
And the "man" page gives no clue!
* the number of active applications
* the number of open windows
* the number of active processes
* the number of distinct process owners
* the number of active threads
* the number of connected computers on your network
And the "man" page gives no clue!
I'm not sure if it is "normal", but mine has always said "2 users" in my uptime. I always assumed it had something to do with the root user, but I really have no idea.
up 9 days, 20:25, 2 users, load averages: 0.24, 0.49, 0.51 on my powerbook.
type in "who" in terminal and you'll find out why there are two (or more) users. my uptime is: up 1 day, 2:15, 2 users, load averages: 0.32 0.36 0.33
i guess panther really is preventing me from reaching those 15+ day uptimes again
dumb betas lol
i guess panther really is preventing me from reaching those 15+ day uptimes again
dumb betas lol
The "who" command shows you the console and a list of one or more pseudo terminals (those devices named ttypn, for some n), so we just have to figure out what determines the number of pseudo terminals in use. I would have thought it would be the number of Terminal windows you have open, but that doesn't match on my system. With two Terminal windows open, I sometimes have 3 ttyp's and sometimes 4.
Therefore, uptime's number of users will be one more than the number of pseudo terminals, but that is not one more than the number of Terminal windows open.
Hmmm...
Therefore, uptime's number of users will be one more than the number of pseudo terminals, but that is not one more than the number of Terminal windows open.
Hmmm...
Originally posted by übergeek
type in "who" in terminal and you'll find out why there are two (or more) users. my uptime is: up 1 day, 2:15, 2 users, load averages: 0.32 0.36 0.33
i guess panther really is preventing me from reaching those 15+ day uptimes again
dumb betas lol
Thanks übergeek. Apparently both the users are me (console and ttyp1). edit: DoctorQ deepens the mystery....
Current uptime;
3days 19hrs 3minutes
I'm forcing myself not to restart until I get the new Panther build.
AppleMatt
iBook 900:
2:45PM up 14 days 15:28, 2 users, load averages: 0.55, 0.59, 0.49
iBook 700:
2:44PM up 11 days 17:09, 2 users, load averages: 0.22, 0.23, 0.23
iMac
2:45PM up 12 days 10:03, 2 users, load averages: 0.55, 0.26, 0.11
MacBoyX
2:45PM up 14 days 15:28, 2 users, load averages: 0.55, 0.59, 0.49
iBook 700:
2:44PM up 11 days 17:09, 2 users, load averages: 0.22, 0.23, 0.23
iMac
2:45PM up 12 days 10:03, 2 users, load averages: 0.55, 0.26, 0.11
MacBoyX
i guess i shall come out of the dust to say that my uptime is 27 days, 16 hrs. it's about a day off of my personal record, and going strong. i am hoping to get up to 50 days at least; we'll see, i guess.
This is not accurate information. All modern Unix kernels use any available memory as cache for the filesystem. Top will correctly report your system not having much memory free because:
A. Your programs are taking a big chunk.
B. The filesystem cache is taking the rest.
When you open a program with a large footprint like Photoshop, you are forcing the kernel to flush a lot of it's excess memory that's being used for cache and allocate it to Photoshop. If you then exit Photoshop, sure you'll have a lot of memory free for a little while, but you're not making your computer run any faster. You're just defeating the whole purpose of having a large filesystem cache: to speed up the computer.
Over time you'll notice that your memory fills up again. This is just because as you read data off of disk, your kernel is once again filling remaining memory with cached data from the hard drive.
I hope this makes sense. Modern Unix kernels are smart enough to manage their memory better than you can manually. Just let it do it's job...
say, thanks for that info. i was wondering why my GB of RAM would slowly fill up over a few days. i found that rather than running an app and exiting it, i would simply run "sh /etc/weekly" and daily and monthly in terminal and that tended to clear things out. but i guess one need not gauge by the free RAM...Originally posted by illumin8
This is not accurate information. All modern Unix kernels use any available memory as cache for the filesystem. Top will correctly report your system not having much memory free because:
A. Your programs are taking a big chunk.
B. The filesystem cache is taking the rest.
When you open a program with a large footprint like Photoshop, you are forcing the kernel to flush a lot of it's excess memory that's being used for cache and allocate it to Photoshop. If you then exit Photoshop, sure you'll have a lot of memory free for a little while, but you're not making your computer run any faster. You're just defeating the whole purpose of having a large filesystem cache: to speed up the computer.
Over time you'll notice that your memory fills up again. This is just because as you read data off of disk, your kernel is once again filling remaining memory with cached data from the hard drive.
I hope this makes sense. Modern Unix kernels are smart enough to manage their memory better than you can manually. Just let it do it's job...
I believe the weekly and monthly scripts do some other useful things like clean out your /tmp. A lot of software places temporary files in /tmp which is actually a RAM disk. If the program doesn't shutdown properly or clean up after itself these files occupy RAM, so it is a good idea to run those scripts occasionally, especially if you seem to be thrashing on your disk a lot.
Someone else in this thread mentioned that Unix machines get faster and faster the longer they are running. The filesystem cache is the reason for this. Especially with a lot of RAM, any Mac running OS X should start to scream after caching the most commonly used data in memory.
Uptime
Here's my uptime by the way. This is from the Linux box on my desk, not sure how to screen capture on KDE:
luke@linux:~> uptime
2:17pm up 22 days 19:41, 4 users, load average: 0.35, 0.30, 0.21
luke@linux:~>
Here is one of the Sun servers I manage:
root@sunone # uptime
2:17pm up 147 day(s), 22:08, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.02, 0.02
root@sunone #
The funny thing is, uptimes that are over 90 days are generally considered a bad thing by knowledgeable sysadmins now. It used to be like "bragging rights" to say "my box has been up for 400 days", but now it's like: "400 days and no security patches?" Anyone want to know a really easy box to hack into?
Here's my uptime by the way. This is from the Linux box on my desk, not sure how to screen capture on KDE:
luke@linux:~> uptime
2:17pm up 22 days 19:41, 4 users, load average: 0.35, 0.30, 0.21
luke@linux:~>
Here is one of the Sun servers I manage:
root@sunone # uptime
2:17pm up 147 day(s), 22:08, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.02, 0.02
root@sunone #
The funny thing is, uptimes that are over 90 days are generally considered a bad thing by knowledgeable sysadmins now. It used to be like "bragging rights" to say "my box has been up for 400 days", but now it's like: "400 days and no security patches?" Anyone want to know a really easy box to hack into?
I believe that, currently, the number of users corresponds to the number of actual users logged in plus the maximum number of Terminal windows you had open simultaneously at any point during your uptime.
What I mean by that is that the Terminal seems to leave behind zombie "users" when you open up a Terminal window. So when you open up a terminal window it will default to "ttyp1". If you open up another it will default to "ttyp2". Then when you close both and open another, it will default to "ttyp1". But all these users never get "logged out", so if you've had 6 Terminal windows open at some point (i.e.: you got up all the way to "ttyp6"), then you'll have 6 zombie users, plus your actual user, so you'll have 7 users in your uptime statistic.
You can actually log out your zombie users by issuing the "exit" command in a Terminal window, and THEN closing it, instead of just closing it. If you do that every time, you'll never have zombie terminal users.
I hope that clears it up.