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I'm running a Rails stack on Ubuntu.

When I call ps -AF, I get a descriptive process name set by the Apache module like

00:00:43 Rails: /var/www...

which is really helpful in diagnosing load issues.

But when I call top, the same process shows up simply as

ruby

Is there any way to get the ps -AF process name in top?

Matthias Braun
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Ben K.
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6 Answers6

240

While top is running, you can press c to toggle between showing the process name and the command line. To remember the toggle state for next time, press W to save the current configuration to ~/.toprc.

Phil Ross
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This is more of a general suggestion, than an answer:

Try out htop. It shows the full process name by default and I think it's much easier to use.

Trey Hunner
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top -c -n 1 should give you what you want.

  • -c: automatically toggles between command line and program name
  • -n 1: this makes top to exit out immediately without showing the updates every 3 seconds (by default)
Jaeyoung Chun
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6

When running top type c to toggle command line/process.

user9517
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1

You could either press c while top is running or use htop. But, if I may, give glances a look as well. It could serve as an alternative.

Glances Home

I use it quite a bit and is really handy!

vnay92
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You can also press h to get the full list of commands.