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Werk #20187: cpu_utilization_os: Fix bogus multi-year "under high load" duration for Docker/LXC containers

Component Checks & agents
Title cpu_utilization_os: Fix bogus multi-year "under high load" duration for Docker/LXC containers
Date Aug 12, 2026
Level Trivial Change
Class Bug Fix
Compatibility Compatible - no manual interaction needed
Checkmk versions & editions
3.0.0b1
Not yet released
Checkmk Community, Checkmk Pro, Checkmk Ultimate, Checkmk Cloud, Checkmk Ultimate MT
2.5.0p12 Checkmk Community, Checkmk Pro, Checkmk Ultimate, Checkmk Cloud, Checkmk Ultimate MT
2.4.0p36 Checkmk Community, Checkmk Pro, Checkmk Ultimate, Checkmk Cloud, Checkmk Ultimate MT
2.3.0p50
Not yet released
Checkmk Community, Checkmk Pro, Checkmk Ultimate, Checkmk Ultimate MT

Sometimes for Docker and LXC containers, the "CPU utilization" service could report an absurdly large value for "is under high load for", for example several thousand years, even though the container had only been busy for a few minutes.

This happened because the check used the cumulative CPU-usage counter (system_cpu_usage, reported in nanoseconds by the container runtime) as if it were the current wall-clock time when calculating how long a core had been above the configured load threshold. That counter is valid for computing the CPU utilization percentage, but not for measuring elapsed real time, and the resulting duration was inflated by many orders of magnitude.

The check now uses the actual current time for this calculation, so the reported duration is correct.

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