uptime flags & options

Basic usage

Show current time, uptime, number of users, and load averages.

uptime

-p, --pretty

Show uptime in human-readable format.

uptime -p

-s, --since

Show the date and time the system booted.

uptime -s

Load averages

The three numbers at the end represent 1-minute, 5-minute, and 15-minute load averages.

uptime

A load average equal to the number of CPU cores means full utilization.

Scripting usage

Extract just the uptime value.

uptime -p

Check if load is high.

uptime | awk -F'load average:' '{print $2}'