[tlug] Server shows strange load and memory spikes

["Jean-Christian Imbeault" <jean_christian@example.com>]

I've been using mrtg to monitor my web server for the past few days and have 
noticed a few things the warrant further investigation. I'm not quite sure 
what to make of it and I am hoping tluggers can help solve some questions.

My web server is showing a memory usage spike at 4am. But there really isn't 
much going on at 4am ... the number of processese is at it's lowest and the 
load is pretty low too.

Also the load on my machine show spikes at the strangest time. From about 
3:30pm to 3:50 it spike from 0.5 to 2.89, and then another from 19:20 to 
19:40, and another one from 3:30am to 4:00am and finally another from 
10:20am to 11:00am. (These number are not from mrtg but form a script I ran 
over the weekend that collects the one minute load average every second. So 
the numbers are pretty accurate)

I can't find any reason for these spikes so I'd like to investigate further 
and see where they come from.

I'm thinking it might be anacron running? (there are no cron jobs except for 
mrtg). I know that updating the locate database will add about .3 to my load 
but it only takes 30 seconds to run.

Other than that I relly can't imagine where the spikes are coming from. The 
memory spike in particular is confusing.

Can anyone offer pointes on how I can try an pin-point where these load and 
memory spike come from?

Thanks,

Jc

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