Check System Resources

Checking your system resources is an important part of being a system administrator. Knowing what processes are using which resources can be helpful to understand how to optimize programs, or which programs can be running 24/7.

top

The top command ships with most distributions of Linux by default, and can be a good way to see which processes are running, and rank them by the resources they are using.

To run top, open a new terminal and simply type the word top, then press enter.

The command line should disappear, and in its place, you should see a list of all the processes running on the system, sorted by the CPU usage.

View CPU information

• To view CPU information, while running top, type t. The bar at the top should show CPU usage, and cycle between usage, tasks, and hidden view.

View Memory information

• To view memory information, while running top, type m. The bar at the top should show Memory information, and cycle through stats such as how much memory is being used (both in % and in amount/max mem), how much of the swapfile is being used and hidden.

Colorful!

• To make the top stats show in color, while running top, type z. The entire top will swap to a more colorful pattern.

• To make the top stats show up in bold, while running top, type b. The stats will be more bolded.

• To edit your colors, while running top, type Z. A menu will pop up where you can select the different parts of the top interface and customize the color they are

Saving Config

• If you do not save, once you exit your current session, your changes will be lost. To make your changes permanent, return to the main top interface (close all menus/help menus) and type W, to write your changes to a file stored in your home directory - .toprc.