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🖥️Linux Lessons
Lesson 51 / 61

Checking Server Uptime with uptime

uptime is for when "I want to check how long this server has been running continuously." uptime displays the elapsed time since the system started, along with the current load.

It's a simple command that needs no arguments — just type uptime alone.

Running uptime displays, on one line, the current time, the uptime duration, the number of logged-in users, and the recent load average.

A common early mistake is judging the load average number as simply "high" or "low" in isolation, overlooking that it needs to be compared against the number of CPU cores.

In real work, this is used to quickly check a server's stable-operation status, and to confirm whether an unexpected restart has occurred.

Linux
Try it (type this into the pseudo terminal)
uptime

🧑‍💻 You can type this command into the Linux pseudo terminal to try it yourself (this page itself has no interactive terminal).

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