Direct answer

CPU steal is time a virtual CPU wanted to run but the hypervisor served other work instead. It is distinct from CPU cgroup throttling and from a saturated Minecraft main tick thread.

How to check it

  1. On a Linux VM, use top or vmstat 1 5 and inspect the steal or st column; some containers hide this host-level signal.
  2. Record lag times, available CPU, steal percentage and the corresponding TPS/MSPT; short isolated spikes need context.
  3. Use spark to determine whether tick cost comes from plugins/entities or whether slowdown coincides with host scheduling delays.

What to change

vmstat 1 5
# Look for st (steal); compare several sampling windows
  1. If steal is repeatedly high when lag occurs, raise the evidence with the VPS provider or compare a different VM host.
  2. Avoid assuming adding JVM threads fixes a host contention problem.
  3. If steal remains negligible during lag, diagnose CPU quota, thermal issues or in-game tick work separately.

Software and version notes

Compatibility and safety

Steal time is a virtual machine scheduling metric, not a universal performance score. Shared hosting and cloud panels may mask the metric or report it at a different scope.

Verify the result

Check several representative periods: improvements should show lower steal during spikes and more stable MSPT on the same workload.

References