monitoring

GuestVCPUQueueHighWarning

Meaning

Within the most recent scrape window (120 seconds), a VirtualMachineInstance (VMI) reported a guest CPU run‑queue length of more than 10 runnable or uninterruptible threads. The run‑queue length is derived from guest_load_1m – vCPU_count.

Impact

• Moderate CPU contention inside the guest. Latency may spike but workload still progresses.

• An early signal that the VM might need additional vCPUs or that a short‑lived process is causing bursts.

Diagnosis

1. Confirm queue length

   kubevirt_vmi_guest_vcpu_queue{namespace="$NS",name="$VM"}
   

2. Check host CPU usage

   rate(kubevirt_vmi_cpu_usage_seconds_total{namespace="$NS",name="$VM"}[2m])
   

3. Inspect guest processes virtctl console <vm> → top -H or pidstat -u 1

4. Verify vCPU allocation

   oc get vmi $VM -ojsonpath='{.spec.domain.cpu}'
   

Mitigation

• Immediately: Consider live-migrating the VM to a node under a lighter load, or throttle demanding processes.
• Short term: Hot-plug or increase vCPU limit; tune application thread pools.
• Long term: Implement horizontal scaling (HPA/KEDA, VMReplicaSet); review placement rules.

If you cannot resolve the issue, see the following resources:

• OKD Help
• #virtualization Slack channel

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