This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.
What this hour is for
Load average is three numbers: one minute, five minutes, and fifteen minutes. They count work that wanted CPU or was stuck in uninterruptible sleep. The interpreter uses the numbers you type and the CPU count you type. It does not SSH to a host.
A load of 4 on 2 CPUs is a different story from a load of 4 on 16 CPUs. Write the CPU count beside the numbers. Do not kill a process because the number looked high. The top page is where you look at one process, later.
Do not treat the interpreter as a monitor of a host you do not administer.
The change you can finish
Apply nothing while you are writing the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the host named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the host, then decide.
Rollback is the file, the package version, or the snapshot you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.
- Type the three numbers from a host you administer.
- Type the CPU count.
- Read the sentence.
- Write whether the load is above the CPU count.
- Do not kill a process from this page.
- Stop.
Mistakes that outlive the command
Load Average Explained goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.
- A kill because the number was high.
- The CPU count omitted.
- Numbers from a host you do not administer.
- One number treated as three.
Decisions to write down
One decision for Load Average Explained: Three numbers and a CPU count. The comparison is written. No process was killed. The host is yours. And the tool did not connect.
Checks before you call it done
Confirm this before you call the change done: The three numbers are written. The CPU count is written. The comparison is one sentence. No process was killed. And the hostname is in the ticket. If one of those fails, stop.
# Compare load with the CPU count.
# Do not kill a process from this page.
# The tool does not connect.Before you leave the host
Load Average Explained ends when the hostname in the prompt matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong host. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong host is not progress.
The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the host and does not know which disk is empty. You delete a line that names a host, a path, or an account you did not write down.
192.0.2.10/24, gateway 192.0.2.1, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. example.com is a documentation name. They belong in the note. They are not values you leave on a host because a draft included them.
prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, or a token you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the password store.
One change is the window. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next change waits for its own page.
If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied change produces a host nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.
A second person reads the hostname and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the host alone.
This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not permission to touch a host you do not administer. You do not disable a firewall, AppArmor, or SELinux to make a check pass.
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