Re: measuring x86 idle time?

[David Brownlee <abs%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Sun, 11 May 2008, Jonathan A. Kollasch wrote:

> On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 04:11:46PM -0500, David Young wrote:
> > On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 04:59:58AM +0000, Michael van Elst wrote:
> > > dyoung%pobox.com@localhost (David Young) writes:
> > >
> > > > In NetBSD, is there a way to measure the amount of time that an x86 CPU
> > > > has spent executing no instructions since boot?  I.e., idle time spent
> > > > in hlt?  If I have to hack the kernel to do it, that's ok.
> > >
> > > sysctl kern.cp_time ?
> >
> > Thanks.  That appears to be in 1/hz units.  The numbers add to the uptime
> > and everything! :-)
> >
> > Looks like my system is mainly idle, just as I suspected.
> >
> > Are there virtual hosting services that will not bill me for the time
> > that my NetBSD/i386/amd64/xen system is idle?
>
> I think the hypervisor will take care of that kind
> of accounting anyway.
>
> But really, the hard part could be convincing a
> Xen-based VPS provider to even run !Linux domUen.
> Also, VPSes aren't usually billed this way.

        Just to chime in a datapoint on a good priced NetBSD/xen provider
        http://www.panix.com/corp/v-colo/vplans.html#chart
        They will also let you boot single user and/or into a NetBSD
        install ISO image if you ever feel the need.
        (Yes I use them, no I don't get commission :)

--
                David/absolute       -- www.NetBSD.org: No hype required --