Troubleshooting CPU load when idle

Elastic Stack Elasticsearch
1

I'm running two single node ES cluster: one for pre-production and one for development. In my monitoring and stats system I've mentioned that since the update to 5.3.1 the pre-production system's power usage went up. I've checked the host: system load when idle went up: from near to 0 to somewheren between 50-100% of one core (0.5-1.0 in top). It's on the pre-production box only: development is still at a idle CPU load near 0 (same OS + config, same ES + Kibana + Logstash + Xpack config, same dataset, same non-existent load except when I'm testing). The only difference between the two boxes is the number of cores (24 vs 8) and the number of shards (24 vs 8).

The process causing the load is java. Everything in /var/log/elasticsearch looks clean. Any smart tips about how to figure out what's cuasing the extra CPU cycles?

Thanks!

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I'd start by trying to pin down if it's Logstash or Elasticsearch, as both use java.

If it's Elasticsearch process, I'd check:

  • Node Stats to see if there is a lot of indexing, merging, GC, heap pressure, etc
  • Hot_threads to see what the threads are doing with respect to CPU usage
  • Since you have XPack installed, skimming over the Monitoring dashboard for anything unusual would be useful (and screenshotting it here if you can)

Not sure what to checi it if it's Logstash tbh, but we can shift this over to the LS forum if it turns out to be LS related :slight_smile:

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