Monitoring linux processes

Question

Is there an option for linux top command where i can filter processes by name?

For example, I only want to monitor python processes (there are several of them), and I'd like to do something like top -option "python" or something like that.

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 08 '10 at 23:00

6

When you want information on processes, the answer is always ps

It is simple, and yet it has a ridiculous number of options.

Try this one:

ps -eo pcpu,pid,user,args | sort -k 1 -r | head -10

Should give you the top 10, by cpu usage.

answered Feb 08 '10 at 23:00

Satanicpuppy

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In the OP's case you want to grep for python before sorting – voretaq7 Feb 08 '10 at 23:03
wow, ps rocks! This command did it: `watch "ps -eo pcpu,pid,user,args | grep python"`. Funny thing is that `watch` ends up in the output as well, because its command contains "python" :-) – mgs Feb 08 '10 at 23:15
try: watch "ps -eo pcpu,pid,user,args | grep [p]ython" – monomyth Feb 08 '10 at 23:22

Dennis Williamson · Answer 2 · 2010-02-08T23:47:17.317

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This approximates the output of top:

watch 'ps axo pid,user,pri,nice,vsz,rsz,size,s,pcpu,pmem,time,cmd|grep "[p]ython\|PID USER"'

edited Feb 08 '10 at 23:47

answered Feb 08 '10 at 23:32

Dennis Williamson

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 08 '10 at 22:42

0

You could always do "top | grep python" but I'm assuming you want something more dynamic

answered Feb 08 '10 at 22:42

g8keepa82

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Won't work: top's output is dynamic and is not grepable. – wzzrd Feb 08 '10 at 22:52
2

Actually this will work on almost all systems (top is usually smart about not doing dynamic updates if it's being piped - you'll get one screen and an exit). You can also run `top -d[count]` (at least on FreeBSD) to get [count] displays. – voretaq7 Feb 08 '10 at 22:59
`top | grep "python"` doesn't do anything – mgs Feb 08 '10 at 23:07
Works fine for me. – Dennis Williamson Feb 08 '10 at 23:47

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 09 '10 at 00:21

My Perl skills are basics, but to get a real Top filtered by name, save this code to a file called topn.pl:

#!/usr/bin/perl

shift @ARGV;
$name = shift @ARGV;
@pids = `/bin/ps -eo pid,user,args | /bin/grep   $name   | /bin/grep -v grep |   /usr/bin/tr -s " "  `;

$arg = "";
foreach (@pids) {
        $_ =~ /^\s([0-9]+)\s/;
        $pid = $1;
        $arg .= " p $pid " if $pid != "";
}

exec("/usr/bin/top $arg @ARGV");

Usage: topn.pl -n FOO c 2 where FOO is the process name to be be grep. The rest of the args are passed to top.

Top accepts at max 20 PID as arguments.

Monitoring linux processes

4 Answers4