On Alibaba Cloud Linux 3 with kernel version kernel-5.10.60-9.al8, a bug in the container resource statistics enhancement feature causes load average to stay above 1 on an idle system. Disable the feature to restore accurate load reporting.
Problem description
When you run top on an idle system meeting both of the following conditions, load average is always greater than 1, even though no actual workload is running:
Operating system: Alibaba Cloud Linux 3
Kernel version:
kernel-5.10.60-9.al8
Cause
The container resource statistics enhancement feature — which tracks system load in containers in rich container scenarios — has a statistical bug that corrupts the system load calculation. As a result, load average stays above 1 on an idle system.
This bug only affects how load is displayed. The actual system load is not elevated, and no system features are affected.Solution
Disable the container resource statistics enhancement feature by writing 0 to /proc/async_load_calc:
sudo sh -c 'echo 0 > /proc/async_load_calc'After you disable the container resource statistics enhancement feature, the statistics on the system load are properly displayed and the existing features of the system are unaffected.