top Command

Top Command

Shortcuts :

  • 1 to see CPU cores
  • Shift+M to see RAM usage sorted process
  • Shift+F to select the sorting order your self

by pressing :

  • 1 you will see no of cpu cores and their status
    • %CPU0 :
    • us – cpu used by user process
    • sy – system process
    • ni – show the process which has been given priority
    • id – idle time of CPU
    • wa – waiting for IO operation
    • hi – hardware interrupt like ctrl+C to stop a process which is utilizing cpu process
    • si – system interrupts
    • st – (steal time)amount of time consumed by your virtual machines hypervisor
  • M (in caps) you will sort by memory the top table
  • m – you will shot the memory is progress bar
  • P – (in caps) sort by cpu utilization
  • u – (type the user name) – to see the processes of that perticular user
  • c – command line argument of that process
  • z – it will become colorfull

In the table of top

  • PR – means priority
  • NI – Nice value(Priority that is set to that process)
  • VIR – Virtual Memory
  • RES – reserved memory (This cannot be swapped for other process)
  • SHR – Shared resources of that process
  • S – Status (R – Running in CPU, S – Sleeping

cat /proc/loadavg //when cpu utilization is high since top is heavy (w command also works)
0.41 0.65 0.65 4/813 5416
how to check loadavg?
1st section 1 min load avg
2nd section 5 min load avg
3rd section 15 min load avg

if load avg is like
20 10 5
This means your load avg is increasing and you need to worry
if load avg is like
5 19 15
This means your load avg is decreasing and you need not worry

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