Load Average of a Linux server can be find in various ways and they are shown below. The 3 values which it displays are the system load averages for the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes.
[root@S3 ~/]# uptime
07:18:07 up 57 days, 8:04, 8 users, load average: 1.82, 1.24, 0.97
[root@S3 ~/]# cat /proc/loadavg
1.67 1.22 0.97 1/283 24487
[root@S3 ~/]# w
07:18:19 up 57 days, 8:04, 8 users, load average: 1.56, 1.21, 0.97
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
adevaraj pts/0 gtlslhh.tcprod. 01:41 0.00s 0.10s 0.03s sshd: adevaraju [priv]
tkhalef pts/3 gtwash01.tcprod. Mon05 45:35 0.38s 0.03s sshd: tkhalef [priv]
nimmika pts/4 220.10.245.82 05:49 1:28m 0.02s 0.02s -bash
[root@S3 ~/]#
[root@S3 ~/]# top
top - 07:19:14 up 57 days, 8:05, 8 users, load average: 1.57, 1.28, 1.00
Tasks: 284 total, 1 running, 281 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie
Cpu(s): 2.2%us, 0.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 95.9%id, 1.2%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 16634296k total, 14157704k used, 2476592k free, 438604k buffers
Swap: 5406712k total, 56k used, 5406656k free, 12835252k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
21914 apache 15 0 0 0 0 Z 7.7 0.0 0:02.06 httpd <defunct>
24774 root 15 0 2508 1072 720 R 3.8 0.0 0:00.02 top
20504 apache 15 0 50596 24m 4800 S 1.9 0.1 0:03.89 httpd
1 root 15 0 2072 616 532 S 0.0 0.0 0:08.33 init
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