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I started using Linux OS a while ago so, I am a beginner. I wanted to collect total CPU for a given process into a file with a given interval. For that reason I am using sar utility.

cpx@cpx-VirtualBox:~$ sar -u 1 4

Linux 4.4.0-142-generic (cpx-VirtualBox)        07/15/2019      _x86_64_        (1 CPU)

10:28:25 PM     CPU     %user       %nice        %system    %iowait      %steal     %idle
10:28:26 PM     all      7.22        0.00        2.06        0.00        0.00       90.72
10:28:27 PM     all     10.10        0.00        3.03        0.00        0.00       86.87
10:28:28 PM     all      7.14        0.00        2.04        0.00        0.00       90.82
10:28:29 PM     all      7.00        0.00        2.00        0.00        0.00       91.00

In Windows, task manager shows overall CPU usage with user and kernel usage in the graph. So, I am unaware of other parameters and in Linux, it seems there's no easy way to see the total CPU.

So, What is the Total CPU here? Should I just do: 100 - idle% value to get the total CPU Usage? Or, is it just %user + %system i.e. user time + kernel time?

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  • why from sar? seems to much work ... why not use /proc/stat ? or from top? can you install software? "mpstat" from package "sysstat" is what was made for this question ;)
    – Rinzwind
    Jul 16, 2019 at 6:31
  • I found that proc/stat doesn't give real time CPU. Mpstat seems like sar. I am not using top because I want to log it every second so it seemed like sar has interval option to collect it.
    – cpx
    Jul 16, 2019 at 6:36

1 Answer 1

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You need %user + %nice + %system for total CPU.

If %user gets close to 100% it might be because of you running "sar"; keep the intervals relative long.

  • %iowait is time that the processor/processors are waiting but it is only for a single CPU So useless for multi cores.
  • %steal is the percentage of time a virtual CPU waits for a real CPU
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  • Why not do 100 - %idle? Thanks. Are %iowait and %steal not relevant?
    – cpx
    Jul 16, 2019 at 6:57
  • iowait is time that the processor/processors are waiting but it is only for a single CPU So useless for multi cores. %steal is the percentage of time a virtual CPU waits for a real CPU %idle: the percentage of time the processor is idle and is not waiting for I/O If you don't want that latter you can use %idle
    – Rinzwind
    Jul 16, 2019 at 7:12
  • I see. So, if I add %user, %nice, %system, and %idle. Will that give me a value of 100%? Or, do I need to add all the values in the row to get it?
    – cpx
    Jul 16, 2019 at 7:34
  • Yes. If you count all the lines you will get 400 so you need to divide by 4 CPUs.
    – Rinzwind
    Jul 16, 2019 at 7:58
  • I see. In my example I have only one CPU :)
    – cpx
    Jul 16, 2019 at 8:01

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