top(1)top(1)NAMEtop - display and update information about the top processes on the
system
SYNOPSIS
time] count] number] filename] pset_id]
DESCRIPTION
displays the top processes on the system and periodically updates the
information. Raw CPU percentage is used to rank the processes.
Options
recognizes the following command-line options:
Set the delay between screen updates to
time seconds. The default delay between updates is
5 seconds.
Show only count displays, then exit. A display is considered
to be one update of the screen. This option is used
to select the number of displays to be shown before
the program exits.
This option runs the
program at the same priority as if it is executed
via a command so that it will execute faster (see
nice(1)). This can be very useful in discovering
any system problem when the system is very sluggish.
This option is accessible only to users who have
appropriate privileges.
User ID (uid) numbers are displayed instead of usernames.
This improves execution speed by eliminating the
additional time required to map uid numbers to user
names.
Hides the individual CPU state information for systems
having multiple processors. Only the average CPU
status will be displayed.
Show only number processes per screen. Note that, if number
is greater than the maximum number of processes that
can be displayed per screen, this option is ignored.
But when used with option, there is no limit on the
maximum number of processes that can be displayed.
Output is appended to
filename. When is used, defaults to 1 for and 16
for
Show load averages and process state break down for system
and processor set pset_id. Show only the processes
running on the processor set pset_id. This option
is supported only if the kernel supports processor
sets functionality.
Adds column PSET before column CPU for individual CPU informa‐
tion. Adds columns PSET before column CPU for each
process information. This option is supported only
if the kernel supports processor sets functionality.
Show individual CPU information.
By default, does not display any individual CPU
information. The user can toggle between individual
process information and individual CPU information
by using the screen-control key. When used with the
option, the option overrides the option.
Screen-Control Commands
When displaying multiple-screen data, recognizes the following keyboard
screen-control commands:
Display next screen if the current screen is not the last
screen.
Display previous screen if the current screen is not the first
screen.
Display the first (top) screen.
Display individual CPU information in place of individual
process
information and vice versa.
Program Termination
To exit the program and resume normal user activities, type at any
time.
Display Description
Three general classes of information are displayed by
The first few lines at the top of the display
show general information about the state of the system,
including:
· System name and current time.
· Load averages in the last one, five, and fifteen
minutes of all the active processors in the system.
· Number of existing processes and the number of pro‐
cesses in each state (sleeping, waiting, running,
starting, zombie, and stopped).
· Percentage of time spent in each of the processor
states (user, nice, system, idle, interrupt and
swapper) per active processor on the system.
· Average value for each of the active processor
states (only on multi-processor systems).
Reports virtual and real memory used by user processes
(with the amount of memory considered "active" in parenthe‐
ses) and the amount of free memory.
Information about individual processes on the system.
When process data cannot fit on a single screen, divides
the data into two or more screens. To view multiple-screen
data, use the and commands described previously. Note that
the system- and memory-data displays are present in each
screen of multiple-screen process data.
Process data is displayed in a format similar to that used
by
Processor number on which the process is executing
(only on multi-processor systems).
Terminal interface used by the process.
Process ID number.
ID of the processor set to which the processor
belongs.
This is shown only when option is used.
Name of the owner of the process.
When the option is specified, the user ID
(uid) is displayed instead of
Current priority of the process.
Nice value ranging from −20 to +20.
Total virtual size of the process in kilobytes.
This includes virtual sizes of text, data,
stack, mmap regions, shared memory regions
and IO mapped regions. This may also
include virtual memory regions shared with
other processes.
Resident size of the process in kilobytes.
It includes the sizes of all private
regions in the process. The resident size
information is, at best, an approximate
value.
Current state of the process.
The various states are or
Number of system and CPU seconds the process has con‐
sumed.
Weighted CPU (central processing unit) percentage.
Raw CPU percentage.
This field is used to sort the top pro‐
cesses.
Name of the command the process is currently running.
EXAMPLES
can be executed with or without command-line options.
To display five screens of data at two-second intervals then automati‐
cally exit, use:
To display information about pset 2, use:
To display individual CPU information in place of individual process
information, use:
and press the key.
AUTHOR
was developed by HP and William LeFebvre of Rice University.
top(1)
