Charting server load

[William O'Higgins Witteman]

Is there an easy, lightweight way to chart the loads on a server?  I am
one of many on a shared host that is obviously overloaded, and I want to
see if I can get the provider to acknowledge that the machine needs
upgrading or dividing.

What I see is high availability (pings come back fast) but occasional
high latency (40+ seconds to deliver a web page, 60+ seconds to
establish an SSH connection) and high loads.  When I see slowdowns and
log into the box, uptime shows load averages in the 20s, 30s, 40s and
even 50s.  I don't know what those numbers mean, but they are a lot
higher then I suspect is good for performance of the web sites on the
machine.

Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.
-- 

yours,

William

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