Provided by: atop_2.7.1-2_amd64 
NAME
atop - Advanced System & Process Monitor
SYNOPSIS
Interactive Usage:
atop [-g|-m|-d|-n|-u|-p|-s|-c|-v|-o|-y|-Y] [-C|-M|-D|-N|-A] [-afFG1xR] [-L linelen]
[-Plabel[,label]... [-Z]] [ interval [ samples ]]
Writing and reading raw logfiles:
atop -w rawfile [-a] [-S] [ interval [ samples ]]
atop -r [ rawfile ] [-b [YYYYMMDD]hhmm ] [-e [YYYYMMDD]hhmm ]
[-g|-m|-d|-n|-u|-p|-s|-c|-v|-o|-y|-Y] [-C|-M|-D|-N|-A] [-fFG1xR] [-L linelen]
[-Plabel[,label]... [-Z]]
DESCRIPTION
The program atop is an interactive monitor to view the load on a Linux system. It shows
the occupation of the most critical hardware resources (from a performance point of view)
on system level, i.e. cpu, memory, disk and network.
It also shows which processes are responsible for the indicated load with respect to cpu
and memory load on process level. Disk load is shown per process if "storage accounting"
is active in the kernel. Network load is shown per process if the kernel module `netatop'
has been installed.
The initial screen shows if atop runs with restricted view (unprivileged) or unrestricted
view (privileged). In case of restricted view atop does not have the privileges (root
identity or necessary capabilities) to retrieve all counter values on system level and on
process level.
Every interval (default: 10 seconds) information is shown about the resource occupation on
system level (cpu, memory, disks and network layers), followed by a list of processes
which have been active during the last interval (note that all processes that were
unchanged during the last interval are not shown, unless the key 'a' has been pressed or
unless sorting on memory occupation is done). If the list of active processes does not
entirely fit on the screen, only the top of the list is shown (sorted in order of
activity).
The intervals are repeated till the number of samples (specified as command argument) is
reached, or till the key 'q' is pressed in interactive mode.
When atop is started, it checks whether the standard output channel is connected to a
screen, or to a file/pipe. In the first case it produces screen control codes (via the
ncurses library) and behaves interactively; in the second case it produces flat ASCII-
output.
In interactive mode, the output of atop scales dynamically to the current dimensions of
the screen/window.
If the window is resized horizontally, columns will be added or removed automatically. For
this purpose, every column has a particular weight. The columns with the highest weights
that fit within the current width will be shown.
If the window is resized vertically, lines of the process/thread list will be added or
removed automatically.
Furthermore in interactive mode the output of atop can be controlled by pressing
particular keys. However it is also possible to specify such key as flag on the command
line. In that case atop switches to the indicated mode on beforehand; this mode can be
modified again interactively. Specifying such key as flag is especially useful when
running atop with output to a pipe or file (non-interactively). These flags are the same
as the keys that can be pressed in interactive mode (see section INTERACTIVE COMMANDS).
Additional flags are available to support storage of atop-data in raw format (see section
RAW DATA STORAGE).
PROCESS ACCOUNTING
With every interval, atop reads the kernel administration to obtain information about all
running processes. However, it is likely that during the interval also processes have
terminated. These processes might have consumed system resources during this interval as
well before they terminated. Therefore, atop tries to read the process accounting records
that contain the accounting information of terminated processes and report these processes
too. Only when the process accounting mechanism in the kernel is activated, the kernel
writes such process accounting record to a file for every process that terminates.
There are various ways for atop to get access to the process accounting records (tried in
this order):
1. When the environment variable ATOPACCT is set, it specifies the name of the process
accounting file. In that case, process accounting for this file should have been
activated on beforehand. Before opening this file for reading, atop drops its root
privileges (if any).
When this environment variable is present but its contents is empty, process
accounting will not be used at all.
2. This is the preferred way of handling process accounting records!
When the atopacctd daemon is active, it has activated the process accounting mechanism
in the kernel and transfers to original accounting records to shadow files. In that
case, atop drops its root privileges and opens the current shadow file for reading.
This way is preferred, because the atopacctd daemon maintains full control of the size
of the original process accounting file written by the kernel and the shadow files
read by the atop process(es).
The atopacct service will be activated before the atop service to enable atop to
detect that process accounting is managed by the atopacctd daemon. As a forking
service, atopacctd takes care that all directories and files are initialized before
the parent process dies. The child process continues as the daemon process.
For further information, refer to the atopacctd man page.
3. When the atopacctd daemon is not active, atop verifies if the process accounting
mechanism has been switched on via the separate psacct or acct package (the package
name depends on the Linux distro). In that case, one of the files /var/log/pacct,
/var/account/pacct or /var/log/account/pacct is in use as process accounting file and
atop opens this file for reading.
4. As a last possibility, atop itself tries to activate the process accounting mechanism
(requires root privileges) using the file /var/cache/atop.d/atop.acct (to be written
by the kernel, to be read by atop itself). Process accounting remains active as long
as at least one atop process is alive. Whenever the last atop process stops (either
by pressing `q' or by `kill -15'), it deactivates the process accounting mechanism
again. Therefore you should never terminate atop by `kill -9', because then it has no
chance to stop process accounting. As a result, the accounting file may consume a lot
of disk space after a while.
To avoid that the process accounting file consumes too much disk space, atop verifies
at the end of every sample if the size of the process accounting file exceeds 200 MiB
and if this atop process is the only one that is currently using the file. In that
case the file is truncated to a size of zero.
Notice that root-privileges are required to switch on/off process accounting in the
kernel. You can start atop as a root user or specify setuid-root privileges to the
executable file. In the latter case, atop switches on process accounting and drops
the root-privileges again.
If atop does not run with root-privileges, it does not show information about finished
processes. It indicates this situation with the message message `no procacct` in the
top-right corner (instead of the counter that shows the number of exited processes).
When during one interval a lot of processes have finished, atop might grow tremendously in
memory when reading all process accounting records at the end of the interval. To avoid
such excessive growth, atop will never read more than 50 MiB with process information from
the process accounting file per interval (approx. 70000 finished processes). In
interactive mode a warning is given whenever processes have been skipped for this reason.
COLORS
For the resource consumption on system level, atop uses colors to indicate that a critical
occupation percentage has been (almost) reached. A critical occupation percentage means
that is likely that this load causes a noticeable negative performance influence for
applications using this resource. The critical percentage depends on the type of resource:
e.g. the performance influence of a disk with a busy percentage of 80% might be more
noticeable for applications/user than a CPU with a busy percentage of 90%.
Currently atop uses the following default values to calculate a weighted percentage per
resource:
Processor
A busy percentage of 90% or higher is considered `critical'.
Disk
A busy percentage of 70% or higher is considered `critical'.
Network
A busy percentage of 90% or higher for the load of an interface is considered
`critical'.
Memory
An occupation percentage of 90% is considered `critical'. Notice that this
occupation percentage is the accumulated memory consumption of the kernel (including
slab) and all processes; the memory for the page cache (`cache' and `buff' in the
MEM-line) and the reclaimable part of the slab (`slrec`) is not implied!
If the number of pages swapped out (`swout' in the PAG-line) is larger than 10 per
second, the memory resource is considered `critical'. A value of at least 1 per
second is considered `almost critical'.
If the committed virtual memory exceeds the limit (`vmcom' and `vmlim' in the SWP-
line), the SWP-line is colored due to overcommitting the system.
Swap
An occupation percentage of 80% is considered `critical' because swap space might be
completely exhausted in the near future; it is not critical from a performance point-
of-view.
These default values can be modified in the configuration file (see separate man-page of
atoprc).
When a resource exceeds its critical occupation percentage, the concerning values in the
screen line are colored red by default.
When a resource exceeded (default) 80% of its critical percentage (so it is almost
critical), the concerning values in the screen line are colored cyan by default. This
`almost critical percentage' (one value for all resources) can be modified in the
configuration file (see separate man-page of atoprc).
The default colors red and cyan can be modified in the configuration file as well (see
separate man-page of atoprc).
With the key 'x' (or flag -x), the use of colors can be suppressed.
NETATOP MODULE
Per-process and per-thread network activity can be measured by the netatop kernel module.
You can download this kernel module from the website (mentioned at the end of this manual
page) and install it on your system if the kernel version is 2.6.24 or newer.
When atop gathers counters for a new interval, it verifies if the netatop module is
currently active. If so, atop obtains the relevant network counters from this module and
shows the number of sent and received packets per process/thread in the generic screen.
Besides, detailed counters can be requested by pressing the `n' key.
When the netatopd daemon is running as well, atop also reads the network counters of
exited processes that are logged by this daemon (comparable with process accounting).
More information about the optional netatop kernel module and the netatopd daemon can be
found in the concerning man-pages and on the website mentioned at the end of this manual
page.
GPU STATISTICS GATHERING
GPU statistics can be gathered by atopgpud which is a separate data collection daemon
process. It gathers cumulative utilization counters of every Nvidia GPU in the system, as
well as utilization counters of every process that uses a GPU. When atop notices that the
daemon is active, it reads these GPU utilization counters with every interval.
The atopgpud daemon is written in Python, so a Python interpreter should be installed on
the target system. The Python code of the daemon is compatible with Python version 2 and
version 3. For the gathering of the statistics, the pynvml module is used by the daemon.
Be sure that this module is installed on the target system before activating the daemon,
by running the command as root pip (the command pip might be exchanged by pip3 in case of
Python3):
pip install nvidia-ml-py
The atopgpud daemon is installed by default as part of the atop package, but it is not
automatically enabled. The daemon can be enabled and started now by running the following
commands (as root):
systemctl enable atopgpu
systemctl start atopgpu
Find a description about the utilization counters in the section OUTPUT DESCRIPTION.
INTERACTIVE COMMANDS
When running atop interactively (no output redirection), keys can be pressed to control
the output. In general, lower case keys can be used to show other information for the
active processes and upper case keys can be used to influence the sort order of the active
process/thread list.
g Show generic output (default).
Per process the following fields are shown in case of a window-width of 80 positions:
process-id, cpu consumption during the last interval in system and user mode, the
virtual and resident memory growth of the process.
The subsequent columns depend on the used kernel:
When the kernel supports "storage accounting" (>= 2.6.20), the data transfer for
read/write on disk, the status and exit code are shown for each process. When the
kernel does not support "storage accounting", the username, number of threads in the
thread group, the status and exit code are shown.
When the kernel module 'netatop' is loaded, the data transfer for send/receive of
network packets is shown for each process.
The last columns contain the state, the occupation percentage for the chosen resource
(default: cpu) and the process name.
When more than 80 positions are available, other information is added.
m Show memory related output.
Per process the following fields are shown in case of a window-width of 80 positions:
process-id, minor and major memory faults, size of virtual shared text, total virtual
process size, total resident process size, virtual and resident growth during last
interval, memory occupation percentage and process name.
When more than 80 positions are available, other information is added.
For memory consumption, always all processes are shown (also the processes that were
not active during the interval).
d Show disk-related output.
When "storage accounting" is active in the kernel, the following fields are shown:
process-id, amount of data read from disk, amount of data written to disk, amount of
data that was written but has been withdrawn again (WCANCL), disk occupation
percentage and process name.
n Show network related output.
Per process the following fields are shown in case of a window-width of 80 positions:
process-id, thread-id, total bandwidth for received packets, total bandwidth for sent
packets, number of received TCP packets with the average size per packet (in bytes),
number of sent TCP packets with the average size per packet (in bytes), number of
received UDP packets with the average size per packet (in bytes), number of sent UDP
packets with the average size per packet (in bytes), the network occupation
percentage and process name.
This information can only be shown when kernel module `netatop' is installed.
When more than 80 positions are available, other information is added.
s Show scheduling characteristics.
Per process the following fields are shown in case of a window-width of 80 positions:
process-id, number of threads in state 'running' (R), number of threads in state
'interruptible sleeping' (S), number of threads in state 'uninterruptible sleeping'
(D), scheduling policy (normal timesharing, realtime round-robin, realtime fifo),
nice value, priority, realtime priority, current processor, status, exit code, state,
the occupation percentage for the chosen resource and the process name.
When more than 80 positions are available, other information is added.
v Show various process characteristics.
Per process the following fields are shown in case of a window-width of 80 positions:
process-id, user name and group, start date and time, status (e.g. exit code if the
process has finished), state, the occupation percentage for the chosen resource and
the process name.
When more than 80 positions are available, other information is added.
c Show the command line of the process.
Per process the following fields are shown: process-id, the occupation percentage for
the chosen resource and the command line including arguments.
e Show GPU utilization.
Per process at least the following fields are shown: process-id, range of GPU numbers
on which the process currently runs, GPU busy percentage on all GPUs, memory busy
percentage (i.e. read and write accesses on memory) on all GPUs, memory occupation at
the moment of the sample, average memory occupation during the sample, and GPU
percentage.
When the atopgpud daemon does not run with root privileges, the GPU busy percentage
and the memory busy percentage are not available on process level. In that case, the
GPU percentage on process level reflects the GPU memory occupation instead of the GPU
busy percentage (which is preferred).
o Show the user-defined line of the process.
In the configuration file the keyword ownprocline can be specified with the
description of a user-defined output-line.
Refer to the man-page of atoprc for a detailed description.
y Show the individual threads within a process (toggle).
Single-threaded processes are still shown as one line.
For multi-threaded processes, one line represents the process while additional lines
show the activity per individual thread (in a different color). Depending on the
option 'a' (all or active toggle), all threads are shown or only the threads that
were active during the last interval. Depending on the option 'Y' (sort threads),
the threads per process will be sorted on the chosen sort criterium or not.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
Y Sort the threads per process when combined with option 'y' (toggle).
u Show the process activity accumulated per user.
Per user the following fields are shown: number of processes active or terminated
during last interval (or in total if combined with command `a'), accumulated cpu
consumption during last interval in system and user mode, the current virtual and
resident memory space consumed by active processes (or all processes of the user if
combined with command `a').
When "storage accounting" is active in the kernel, the accumulated read and write
throughput on disk is shown. When the kernel module `netatop' has been installed,
the number of received and sent network packets are shown.
The last columns contain the accumulated occupation percentage for the chosen
resource (default: cpu) and the user name.
p Show the process activity accumulated per program (i.e. process name).
Per program the following fields are shown: number of processes active or terminated
during last interval (or in total if combined with command `a'), accumulated cpu
consumption during last interval in system and user mode, the current virtual and
resident memory space consumed by active processes (or all processes of the user if
combined with command `a').
When "storage accounting" is active in the kernel, the accumulated read and write
throughput on disk is shown. When the kernel module `netatop' has been installed,
the number of received and sent network packets are shown.
The last columns contain the accumulated occupation percentage for the chosen
resource (default: cpu) and the program name.
j Show the process activity accumulated per Docker container.
Per container the following fields are shown: number of processes active or
terminated during last interval (or in total if combined with command `a'),
accumulated cpu consumption during last interval in system and user mode, the current
virtual and resident memory space consumed by active processes (or all processes of
the user if combined with command `a').
When "storage accounting" is active in the kernel, the accumulated read and write
throughput on disk is shown. When the kernel module `netatop' has been installed,
the number of received and sent network packets are shown.
The last columns contain the accumulated occupation percentage for the chosen
resource (default: cpu) and the Docker container id (CID).
C Sort the current list in the order of cpu consumption (default). The one-but-last
column changes to ``CPU''.
E Sort the current list in the order of GPU utilization (preferred, but only applicable
when the atopgpud daemon runs under root privileges) or the order of GPU memory
occupation). The one-but-last column changes to ``GPU''.
M Sort the current list in the order of resident memory consumption. The one-but-last
column changes to ``MEM''. In case of sorting on memory, the full process list will
be shown (not only the active processes).
D Sort the current list in the order of disk accesses issued. The one-but-last column
changes to ``DSK''.
N Sort the current list in the order of network bandwidth (received and transmitted).
The one-but-last column changes to ``NET''.
A Sort the current list automatically in the order of the most busy system resource
during this interval. The one-but-last column shows either ``ACPU'', ``AMEM'',
``ADSK'' or ``ANET'' (the preceding 'A' indicates automatic sorting-order). The most
busy resource is determined by comparing the weighted busy-percentages of the system
resources, as described earlier in the section COLORS.
This option remains valid until another sorting-order is explicitly selected again.
A sorting-order for disk is only possible when "storage accounting" is active. A
sorting-order for network is only possible when the kernel module `netatop' is
loaded.
Miscellaneous interactive commands:
? Request for help information (also the key 'h' can be pressed).
V Request for version information (version number and date).
R Gather and calculate the proportional set size of processes (toggle). Gathering of
all values that are needed to calculate the PSIZE of a process is a very time-
consuming task, so this key should only be active when analyzing the resident memory
consumption of processes.
W Get the WCHAN per thread (toggle). Gathering of the WCHAN string per thread is a
relatively time-consuming task, so this key should only be made active when analyzing
the reason for threads to be in sleep state.
x Suppress colors to highlight critical resources (toggle).
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
z The pause key can be used to freeze the current situation in order to investigate the
output on the screen. While atop is paused, the keys described above can be pressed
to show other information about the current list of processes. Whenever the pause
key is pressed again, atop will continue with a next sample.
i Modify the interval timer (default: 10 seconds). If an interval timer of 0 is
entered, the interval timer is switched off. In that case a new sample can only be
triggered manually by pressing the key 't'.
t Trigger a new sample manually. This key can be pressed if the current sample should
be finished before the timer has exceeded, or if no timer is set at all (interval
timer defined as 0). In the latter case atop can be used as a stopwatch to measure
the load being caused by a particular application transaction, without knowing on
beforehand how many seconds this transaction will last.
When viewing the contents of a raw file this key can be used to show the next sample
from the file. This key can also be used when viewing raw data via a pipe.
T When viewing the contents of a raw file this key can be used to show the previous
sample from the file, however not when reading raw data from a pipe.
b When viewing the contents of a raw file, this key can be used to branch to a certain
timestamp within the file either forward or backward. When viewing raw data from a
pipe only forward branches are possible.
r Reset all counters to zero to see the system and process activity since boot again.
When viewing the contents of a raw file, this key can be used to rewind to the
beginning of the file again (except when reading raw data from a pipe).
U Specify a search string for specific user names as a regular expression. From now
on, only (active) processes will be shown from a user which matches the regular
expression. The system statistics are still system wide. If the Enter-key is
pressed without specifying a name, (active) processes of all users will be shown
again.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
I Specify a list with one or more PIDs to be selected. From now on, only processes
will be shown with a PID which matches one of the given list. The system statistics
are still system wide. If the Enter-key is pressed without specifying a PID, all
(active) processes will be shown again.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
P Specify a search string for specific process names as a regular expression. From now
on, only processes will be shown with a name which matches the regular expression.
The system statistics are still system wide. If the Enter-key is pressed without
specifying a name, all (active) processes will be shown again.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
/ Specify a specific command line search string as a regular expression. From now on,
only processes will be shown with a command line which matches the regular
expression. The system statistics are still system wide. If the Enter-key is
pressed without specifying a string, all (active) processes will be shown again.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
J Specify a Docker container id of 12 (hexadecimal) characters. From now on, only
processes will be shown that run in that specific Docker container (CID). The system
statistics are still system wide. If the Enter-key is pressed without specifying a
container id, all (active) processes will be shown again.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
Q Specify a comma-separated list of process/thread state characters. From now on, only
processes/threads will be shown that are in those specific states. Accepted states
are: R (running), S (sleeping), D (disk sleep), I (idle), T (stopped), t (tracing
stop), X (dead), Z (zombie) and P (parked). The system statistics are still system
wide. If the Enter-key is pressed without specifying a state, all (active)
processes/threads will be shown again.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
S Specify search strings for specific logical volume names, specific disk names and
specific network interface names. All search strings are interpreted as a regular
expressions. From now on, only those system resources are shown that match the
concerning regular expression. If the Enter-key is pressed without specifying a
search string, all (active) system resources of that type will be shown again.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
a The `all/active' key can be used to toggle between only showing/accumulating the
processes that were active during the last interval (default) or showing/accumulating
all processes.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
G By default, atop shows/accumulates the processes that are alive and the processes
that are exited during the last interval. With this key (toggle),
showing/accumulating the processes that are exited can be suppressed.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
f Show a fixed (maximum) number of header lines for system resources (toggle). By
default only the lines are shown about system resources (CPUs, paging, logical
volumes, disks, network interfaces) that really have been active during the last
interval. With this key you can force atop to show lines of inactive resources as
well.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
F Suppress sorting of system resources (toggle). By default system resources (CPUs,
logical volumes, disks, network interfaces) are sorted on utilization.
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
1 Show relevant counters as an average per second (in the format `..../s') instead of
as a total during the interval (toggle).
Whether this key is active or not can be seen in the header line.
l Limit the number of system level lines for the counters per-cpu, the active disks and
the network interfaces. By default lines are shown of all CPUs, disks and network
interfaces which have been active during the last interval. Limiting these lines can
be useful on systems with huge number CPUs, disks or interfaces in order to be able
to run atop on a screen/window with e.g. only 24 lines.
For all mentioned resources the maximum number of lines can be specified
interactively. When using the flag -l the maximum number of per-cpu lines is set to
0, the maximum number of disk lines to 5 and the maximum number of interface lines to
3. These values can be modified again in interactive mode.
k Send a signal to an active process (a.k.a. kill a process).
q Quit the program.
PgDn Show the next page of the process/thread list.
With the arrow-down key the list can be scrolled downwards with single lines.
^F Show the next page of the process/thread list (forward).
With the arrow-down key the list can be scrolled downwards with single lines.
PgUp Show the previous page of the process/thread list.
With the arrow-up key the list can be scrolled upwards with single lines.
^B Show the previous page of the process/thread list (backward).
With the arrow-up key the list can be scrolled upwards with single lines.
^L Redraw the screen.
RAW DATA STORAGE
In order to store system and process level statistics for long-term analysis (e.g. to
check the system load and the active processes running yesterday between 3:00 and 4:00
PM), atop can store the system and process level statistics in compressed binary format in
a raw file with the flag -w followed by the filename. If this file already exists and is
recognized as a raw data file, atop will append new samples to the file (starting with a
sample which reflects the activity since boot); if the file does not exist, it will be
created.
All information about processes and threads is stored in the raw file.
The interval (default: 10 seconds) and number of samples (default: infinite) can be passed
as last arguments. Instead of the number of samples, the flag -S can be used to indicate
that atop should finish anyhow before midnight.
A raw file can be read and visualized again with the flag -r followed by the filename. If
no filename is specified, the file /var/log/atop/atop_YYYYMMDD is opened for input (where
YYYYMMDD are digits representing the current date). If a filename is specified in the
format YYYYMMDD (representing any valid date), the file /var/log/atop/atop_YYYYMMDD is
opened. If a filename with the symbolic name y is specified, yesterday's daily logfile is
opened (this can be repeated so 'yyyy' indicates the logfile of four days ago). If the
filename - is used, stdin will be read.
The samples from the file can be viewed interactively by using the key 't' to show the
next sample, the key 'T' to show the previous sample, the key 'b' to branch to a
particular time or the key 'r' to rewind to the begin of the file.
When output is redirected to a file or pipe, atop prints all samples in plain ASCII. The
default line length is 80 characters in that case; with the flag -L followed by an
alternate line length, more (or less) columns will be shown.
With the flag -b (begin time) and/or -e (end time) followed by a time argument of the form
[YYYYMMDD]hhmm, a certain time period within the raw file can be selected.
Every day at midnight atop is restarted to write compressed binary data to the file
/var/log/atop/atop_YYYYMMDD with an interval of 10 minutes by default.
Furthermore all raw files are removed that are older than 28 days (by default).
The mentioned default values can be overruled in the file /etc/default/atop that might
contain other values for LOGOPTS (by default without any flag), LOGINTERVAL (in seconds,
by default 600), LOGGENERATIONS (in days, by default 28), and LOGPATH (directory in which
logfiles are stored).
Unfortunately, it is not always possible to keep the format of the raw files compatible in
newer versions of atop especially when lots of new counters have to be maintained.
Therefore, the program atopconvert is installed to convert a raw file created by an older
version of atop to a raw file that can be read by a newer version of atop (see the man
page of atopconvert for more details).
OUTPUT DESCRIPTION
The first sample shows the system level activity since boot (the elapsed time in the
header shows the time since boot). Note that particular counters could have reached their
maximum value (several times) and started by zero again, so do not rely on these figures.
For every sample atop first shows the lines related to system level activity. If a
particular system resource has not been used during the interval, the entire line related
to this resource is suppressed. So the number of system level lines may vary for each
sample.
After that a list is shown of processes which have been active during the last interval.
This list is by default sorted on cpu consumption, but this order can be changed by the
keys which are previously described.
If values have to be shown by atop which do not fit in the column width, another format is
used. If e.g. a cpu-consumption of 233216 milliseconds should be shown in a column width
of 4 positions, it is shown as `233s' (in seconds). For large memory figures, another
unit is chosen if the value does not fit (Mb instead of Kb, Gb instead of Mb, Tb instead
of Gb, ...). For other values, a kind of exponent notation is used (value 123456789 shown
in a column of 5 positions gives 123e6).
OUTPUT DESCRIPTION - SYSTEM LEVEL
The system level information consists of the following output lines:
PRC Process and thread level totals.
This line contains the total cpu time consumed in system mode (`sys') and in user
mode (`user'), the total number of processes present at this moment (`#proc'), the
total number of threads present at this moment in state `running' (`#trun'),
`sleeping interruptible' (`#tslpi') and `sleeping uninterruptible' (`#tslpu'), the
number of zombie processes (`#zombie'), the number of clone system calls (`clones'),
and the number of processes that ended during the interval (`#exit') when process
accounting is used. Instead of `#exit` the last column may indicate that process
accounting could not be activated (`no procacct`).
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
CPU CPU utilization.
At least one line is shown for the total occupation of all CPUs together.
In case of a multi-processor system, an additional line is shown for every individual
processor (with `cpu' in lower case), sorted on activity. Inactive CPUs will not be
shown by default. The lines showing the per-cpu occupation contain the cpu number in
the field combined with the wait percentage.
Every line contains the percentage of cpu time spent in kernel mode by all active
processes (`sys'), the percentage of cpu time consumed in user mode (`user') for all
active processes (including processes running with a nice value larger than zero),
the percentage of cpu time spent for interrupt handling (`irq') including softirq,
the percentage of unused cpu time while no processes were waiting for disk I/O
(`idle'), and the percentage of unused cpu time while at least one process was
waiting for disk I/O (`wait').
In case of per-cpu occupation, the cpu number and the wait percentage (`w') for that
cpu. The number of lines showing the per-cpu occupation can be limited.
For virtual machines, the steal-percentage (`steal') shows the percentage of cpu time
stolen by other virtual machines running on the same hardware.
For physical machines hosting one or more virtual machines, the guest-percentage
(`guest') shows the percentage of cpu time used by the virtual machines. Notice that
this percentage overlaps the user percentage!
When PMC performance monitoring counters are supported by the CPU and the kernel (and
atop runs with root privileges), the number of instructions per CPU cycle (`ipc') is
shown. The first sample always shows the value 'initial', because the counters are
just activated at the moment that atop is started.
When the CPU busy percentage is high and the IPC is less than 1.0, it is likely that
the CPU is frequently waiting for memory access during instruction execution (larger
CPU caches or faster memory might be helpful to improve performance). When the CPU
busy percentage is high and the IPC is greater than 1.0, it is likely that the CPU is
instruction-bound (more/faster cores might be helpful to improve performance).
Furthermore, per CPU the effective number of cycles (`cycl') is shown. This value
can reach the current CPU frequency if such CPU is 100% busy. When an idle CPU is
halted, the number of effective cycles can be (considerably) lower than the current
frequency.
Notice that the average instructions per cycle and number of cycles is shown in the
CPU line for all CPUs.
Beware that reading the cycle counter in virtual machines (guests) might introduce
performance delays. Therefore this metric is by default disabled in virtual machines.
However, with the keyword 'perfevents' in the atoprc file this metric can be
explicitly set to 'enable' or 'disable' (see separate man-page of atoprc).
See also: http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-05-09/cpu-utilization-is-wrong.html
In case of frequency scaling, all previously mentioned CPU percentages are relative
to the used scaling of the CPU during the interval. If a CPU has been active for
e.g. 50% in user mode during the interval while the frequency scaling of that CPU was
40%, only 20% of the full capacity of the CPU has been used in user mode.
In case that the kernel module `cpufreq_stats' is active (after issuing `modprobe
cpufreq_stats'), the average frequency (`avgf') and the average scaling percentage
(`avgscal') is shown. Otherwise the current frequency (`curf') and the current
scaling percentage (`curscal') is shown at the moment that the sample is taken.
Notice that average values for frequency and scaling are shown in the CPU line for
every CPU.
Frequency scaling statistics are only gathered for systems with maximum 8 CPUs, since
gathering of these values per CPU is very time consuming.
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
CPL CPU load information.
This line contains the load average figures reflecting the number of threads that are
available to run on a CPU (i.e. part of the runqueue) or that are waiting for disk
I/O. These figures are averaged over 1 (`avg1'), 5 (`avg5') and 15 (`avg15') minutes.
Furthermore the number of context switches (`csw'), the number of serviced interrupts
(`intr') and the number of available CPUs are shown.
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
GPU GPU utilization (Nvidia).
Read the section GPU STATISTICS GATHERING in this document to find the details about
the activation of the atopgpud daemon.
In the first column of every line, the bus-id (last nine characters) and the GPU
number are shown. The subsequent columns show the percentage of time that one or
more kernels were executing on the GPU (`gpubusy'), the percentage of time that
global (device) memory was being read or written (`membusy'), the occupation
percentage of memory (`memocc'), the total memory (`total'), the memory being in use
at the moment of the sample (`used'), the average memory being in use during the
sample time (`usavg'), the number of processes being active on the GPU at the moment
of the sample (`#proc'), and the type of GPU.
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
The number of lines showing the GPUs can be limited.
MEM Memory occupation.
This line contains the total amount of physical memory (`tot'), the amount of memory
which is currently free (`free'), the amount of memory in use as page cache including
the total resident shared memory (`cache'), the amount of memory within the page
cache that has to be flushed to disk (`dirty'), the amount of memory used for
filesystem meta data (`buff'), the amount of memory being used for kernel mallocs
(`slab'), the amount of slab memory that is reclaimable (`slrec'), the resident size
of shared memory including tmpfs (`shmem`), the resident size of shared memory
(`shrss`) the amount of shared memory that is currently swapped (`shswp`), the amount
of memory that is currently claimed by vmware's balloon driver (`vmbal`), the amount
of memory that is currently claimed by the ARC (cache) of ZFSonlinux (`zfarc`), the
amount of memory that is claimed for huge pages (`hptot`), the amount of huge page
memory that is really in use (`hpuse`), and the number of NUMA nodes in this system
(`numnode').
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
SWP Swap occupation and overcommit info.
This line contains the total amount of swap space on disk (`tot'), the amount of free
swap space (`free'), the size of the swap cache (`swcac'), the total size of
compressed storage in zswap (`zpool`), the total size of the compressed pages stored
in zswap (`zstor'), the total size of the memory used for KSM (`ksuse`, i.e. shared),
and the total size of the memory saved (deduped) by KSM (`kssav`, i.e. sharing).
Furthermore the committed virtual memory space (`vmcom') and the maximum limit of the
committed space (`vmlim', which is by default swap size plus 50% of memory size) is
shown. The committed space is the reserved virtual space for all allocations of
private memory space for processes. The kernel only verifies whether the committed
space exceeds the limit if strict overcommit handling is configured
(vm.overcommit_memory is 2).
NUM Memory utilization per NUMA node.
This line shows the total amount of physical memory of this node (`tot'), the amount
of free memory (`free'), the amount of memory for cached file data (`file'), modified
cached file data (`dirty'), recently used memory (`activ'), less recently used memory
(`inact'), memory being used for kernel mallocs (`slab'), the amount of slab memory
that is reclaimable (`slrec'), shared memory including tmpfs (`shmem'), total huge
pages (`hptot') and the fragmentation percentage (`frag').
NUC CPU utilization per NUMA node (not shown in case of a single NUMA node).
This line shows the utilization percentages of all CPUs related to this NUMA node,
categorized for system mode (`sys'), user mode (`user'), user mode for niced
processes (`niced'), idle mode (`idle'), wait mode (`w' preceded by the node number),
irq mode (`irq'), softirq mode (`sirq'), steal mode (`steal'), and guest mode
(`guest') overlapping user mode.
PAG Paging frequency.
This line contains the number of scanned pages (`scan') due to the fact that free
memory drops below a particular threshold, the number times that the kernel tries to
reclaim pages due to an urgent need (`stall'), the number of process stalls to run
memory compaction to allocate huge pages (`compact'), the number of NUMA pages
migrated (`numamig'), and the total number of memory pages migrated successfully e.g.
between NUMA nodes or for compaction (`migrate') are shown.
Also the number of memory pages the system read from swap space (`swin'), the number
of memory pages the system wrote to swap space (`swout'), and the number of out-of-
memory kills (`oomkill').
PSI Pressure Stall Information.
This line contains percentages about resource pressure related to CPU, memory and
I/O. Certain percentages refer to 'some' meaning that some processes/threads were
delayed due to resource overload. Other percentages refer to 'full' meaning a loss of
overall throughput due to resource overload.
The values `cpusome', `memsome', `memfull', `iosome' and `iofull' show the pressure
percentage during the entire interval.
The values `cs' (cpu some), `ms' (memory some), `mf' (memory full), `is' (I/O some)
and `if' (I/O full) each show three percentages separated by slashes: pressure
percentage over the last 10, 60 and 300 seconds.
LVM/MDD/DSK
Logical volume/multiple device/disk utilization.
Per active unit one line is produced, sorted on unit activity. Such line shows the
name (e.g. VolGroup00-lvtmp for a logical volume or sda for a hard disk), the busy
percentage i.e. the portion of time that the unit was busy handling requests
(`busy'), the number of read requests issued (`read'), the number of write requests
issued (`write'), the number of discard requests issued (`discrd') if supported by
kernel version, the number of KiBytes per read (`KiB/r'), the number of KiBytes per
write (`KiB/w'), the number of KiBytes per discard (`KiB/d') if supported by kernel
version, the number of MiBytes per second throughput for reads (`MBr/s'), the number
of MiBytes per second throughput for writes (`MBw/s'), the average queue depth
(`avq') and the average number of milliseconds needed by a request (`avio') for seek,
latency and data transfer.
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
The number of lines showing the units can be limited per class (LVM, MDD or DSK) with
the 'l' key or statically (see separate man-page of atoprc). By specifying the value
0 for a particular class, no lines will be shown any more for that class.
NFM Network Filesystem (NFS) mount at the client side.
For each NFS-mounted filesystem, a line is shown that contains the mounted server
directory, the name of the server (`srv'), the total number of bytes physically read
from the server (`read') and the total number of bytes physically written to the
server (`write'). Data transfer is subdivided in the number of bytes read via normal
read() system calls (`nread'), the number of bytes written via normal read() system
calls (`nwrit'), the number of bytes read via direct I/O (`dread'), the number of
bytes written via direct I/O (`dwrit'), the number of bytes read via memory mapped
I/O pages (`mread'), and the number of bytes written via memory mapped I/O pages
(`mwrit').
NFC Network Filesystem (NFS) client side counters.
This line contains the number of RPC calls issues by local processes (`rpc'), the
number of read RPC calls (`read`) and write RPC calls (`rpwrite') issued to the NFS
server, the number of RPC calls being retransmitted (`retxmit') and the number of
authorization refreshes (`autref').
NFS Network Filesystem (NFS) server side counters.
This line contains the number of RPC calls received from NFS clients (`rpc'), the
number of read RPC calls received (`cread`), the number of write RPC calls received
(`cwrit'), the number of Megabytes/second returned to read requests by clients
(`MBcr/s`), the number of Megabytes/second passed in write requests by clients
(`MBcw/s`), the number of network requests handled via TCP (`nettcp'), the number of
network requests handled via UDP (`netudp'), the number of reply cache hits
(`rchits'), the number of reply cache misses (`rcmiss') and the number of uncached
requests (`rcnoca'). Furthermore some error counters indicating the number of
requests with a bad format (`badfmt') or a bad authorization (`badaut'), and a
counter indicating the number of bad clients (`badcln').
NET Network utilization (TCP/IP).
One line is shown for activity of the transport layer (TCP and UDP), one line for the
IP layer and one line per active interface.
For the transport layer, counters are shown concerning the number of received TCP
segments including those received in error (`tcpi'), the number of transmitted TCP
segments excluding those containing only retransmitted octets (`tcpo'), the number of
UDP datagrams received (`udpi'), the number of UDP datagrams transmitted (`udpo'),
the number of active TCP opens (`tcpao'), the number of passive TCP opens (`tcppo'),
the number of TCP output retransmissions (`tcprs'), the number of TCP input errors
(`tcpie'), the number of TCP output resets (`tcpor'), the number of UDP no ports
(`udpnp'), and the number of UDP input errors (`udpie').
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
These counters are related to IPv4 and IPv6 combined.
For the IP layer, counters are shown concerning the number of IP datagrams received
from interfaces, including those received in error (`ipi'), the number of IP
datagrams that local higher-layer protocols offered for transmission (`ipo'), the
number of received IP datagrams which were forwarded to other interfaces (`ipfrw'),
the number of IP datagrams which were delivered to local higher-layer protocols
(`deliv'), the number of received ICMP datagrams (`icmpi'), and the number of
transmitted ICMP datagrams (`icmpo').
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
These counters are related to IPv4 and IPv6 combined.
For every active network interface one line is shown, sorted on the interface
activity. Such line shows the name of the interface and its busy percentage in the
first column. The busy percentage for half duplex is determined by comparing the
interface speed with the number of bits transmitted and received per second; for full
duplex the interface speed is compared with the highest of either the transmitted or
the received bits. When the interface speed can not be determined (e.g. for the
loopback interface), `---' is shown instead of the percentage.
Furthermore the number of received packets (`pcki'), the number of transmitted
packets (`pcko'), the line speed of the interface (`sp'), the effective amount of
bits received per second (`si'), the effective amount of bits transmitted per second
(`so'), the number of collisions (`coll'), the number of received multicast packets
(`mlti'), the number of errors while receiving a packet (`erri'), the number of
errors while transmitting a packet (`erro'), the number of received packets dropped
(`drpi'), and the number of transmitted packets dropped (`drpo').
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
The number of lines showing the network interfaces can be limited.
IFB Infiniband utilization.
For every active Infiniband port one line is shown, sorted on activity. Such line
shows the name of the port and its busy percentage in the first column. The busy
percentage is determined by taking the highest of either the transmitted or the
received bits during the interval, multiplying that value by the number of lanes and
comparing it against the maximum port speed.
Furthermore the number of received packets divided by the number of lanes (`pcki'),
the number of transmitted packets divided by the number of lanes (`pcko'), the
maximum line speed (`sp'), the effective amount of bits received per second (`si'),
the effective amount of bits transmitted per second (`so'), and the number of lanes
(`lanes').
If the screen-width does not allow all of these counters, only a relevant subset is
shown.
The number of lines showing the Infiniband ports can be limited.
OUTPUT DESCRIPTION - PROCESS LEVEL
Following the system level information, the processes are shown from which the resource
utilization has changed during the last interval. These processes might have used cpu time
or issued disk or network requests. However a process is also shown if part of it has been
paged out due to lack of memory (while the process itself was in sleep state).
Per process the following fields may be shown (in alphabetical order), depending on the
current output mode as described in the section INTERACTIVE COMMANDS and depending on the
current width of your window:
AVGRSZ The average size of one read-action on disk.
AVGWSZ The average size of one write-action on disk.
BANDWI Total bandwidth for received TCP and UDP packets consumed by this process (bits-
per-second). This value can be compared with the value `si' on interface level
(used bandwidth per interface).
This information will only be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
BANDWO Total bandwidth for sent TCP and UDP packets consumed by this process (bits-per-
second). This value can be compared with the value `so' on interface level (used
bandwidth per interface).
This information will only be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
CID Container ID (Docker) of 12 hexadecimal digits, referring to the container in
which the process/thread is running. If a process has been started and finished
during the last interval, a `?' is shown because the container ID is not part of
the standard process accounting record.
CMD The name of the process. This name can be surrounded by "less/greater than"
signs (`<name>') which means that the process has finished during the last
interval.
Behind the abbreviation `CMD' in the header line, the current page number and the
total number of pages of the process/thread list are shown.
COMMAND-LINE
The full command line of the process (including arguments). If the length of the
command line exceeds the length of the screen line, the arrow keys -> and <- can
be used for horizontal scroll.
Behind the verb `COMMAND-LINE' in the header line, the current page number and
the total number of pages of the process/thread list are shown.
CPU The occupation percentage of this process related to the available capacity for
this resource on system level.
CPUNR The identification of the CPU the (main) thread is running on or has recently
been running on.
CTID Container ID (OpenVZ). If a process has been started and finished during the
last interval, a `?' is shown because the container ID is not part of the
standard process accounting record.
DSK The occupation percentage of this process related to the total load that is
produced by all processes (i.e. total disk accesses by all processes during the
last interval).
This information is shown when per process "storage accounting" is active in the
kernel.
EGID Effective group-id under which this process executes.
ENDATE Date that the process has been finished. If the process is still running, this
field shows `active'.
ENTIME Time that the process has been finished. If the process is still running, this
field shows `active'.
ENVID Virtual environment identified (OpenVZ only).
EUID Effective user-id under which this process executes.
EXC The exit code of a terminated process (second position of column `ST' is E) or
the fatal signal number (second position of column `ST' is S or C).
FSGID Filesystem group-id under which this process executes.
FSUID Filesystem user-id under which this process executes.
GPU When the atopgpud daemon does not run with root privileges, the GPU percentage
reflects the GPU memory occupation percentage (memory of all GPUs is 100%).
When the atopgpud daemon runs with root privileges, the GPU percentage reflects
the GPU busy percentage.
GPUBUSY Busy percentage on all GPUs (one GPU is 100%).
When the atopgpud daemon does not run with root privileges, this value is not
available.
GPUNUMS Comma-separated list of GPUs used by the process during the interval. When the
comma-separated list exceeds the width of the column, a hexadecimal value is
shown.
LOCKSZ The virtual amount of memory being locked (i.e. non-swappable) by this process
(or user).
MAJFLT The number of page faults issued by this process that have been solved by
creating/loading the requested memory page.
MEM The occupation percentage of this process related to the available capacity for
this resource on system level.
MEMAVG Average memory occupation during the interval on all used GPUs.
MEMBUSY Busy percentage of memory on all GPUs (one GPU is 100%), i.e. the time needed
for read and write accesses on memory.
When the atopgpud daemon does not run with root privileges, this value is not
available.
MEMNOW Memory occupation at the moment of the sample on all used GPUs.
MINFLT The number of page faults issued by this process that have been solved by
reclaiming the requested memory page from the free list of pages.
NET The occupation percentage of this process related to the total load that is
produced by all processes (i.e. consumed network bandwidth of all processes
during the last interval).
This information will only be shown when kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
NICE The more or less static priority that can be given to a process on a scale from
-20 (high priority) to +19 (low priority).
NPROCS The number of active and terminated processes accumulated for this user or
program.
PID Process-id. If a process has been started and finished during the last interval,
a `?' is shown because the process-id is not part of the standard process
accounting record.
POLI The policies 'norm' (normal, which is SCHED_OTHER), 'btch' (batch) and 'idle'
refer to timesharing processes. The policies 'fifo' (SCHED_FIFO) and 'rr' (round
robin, which is SCHED_RR) refer to realtime processes.
PPID Parent process-id. If a process has been started and finished during the last
interval, value 0 is shown because the parent process-id is not part of the
standard process accounting record.
PRI The process' priority ranges from 0 (highest priority) to 139 (lowest priority).
Priority 0 to 99 are used for realtime processes (fixed priority independent of
their behavior) and priority 100 to 139 for timesharing processes (variable
priority depending on their recent CPU consumption and the nice value).
PSIZE The proportional memory size of this process (or user).
Every process shares resident memory with other processes. E.g. when a particular
program is started several times, the code pages (text) are only loaded once in
memory and shared by all incarnations. Also the code of shared libraries is
shared by all processes using that shared library, as well as shared memory and
memory-mapped files. For the PSIZE calculation of a process, the resident memory
of a process that is shared with other processes is divided by the number of
sharers. This means, that every process is accounted for a proportional part of
that memory. Accumulating the PSIZE values of all processes in the system gives a
reliable impression of the total resident memory consumed by all processes.
Since gathering of all values that are needed to calculate the PSIZE is a very
time-consuming task, the 'R' key (or '-R' flag) should be active. Gathering these
values also requires superuser privileges (otherwise '?K' is shown in the
output).
If a process has finished during the last interval, no value is shown since the
proportional memory size is not part of the standard process accounting record.
RDDSK When the kernel maintains standard io statistics (>= 2.6.20):
The read data transfer issued physically on disk (so reading from the disk cache
is not accounted for).
Unfortunately, the kernel aggregates the data transfer of a process to the data
transfer of its parent process when terminating, so you might see transfers for
(parent) processes like cron, bash or init, that are not really issued by them.
RDELAY Runqueue delay, i.e. time spent waiting on a runqueue.
RGID The real group-id under which the process executes.
RGROW The amount of resident memory that the process has grown during the last
interval. A resident growth can be caused by touching memory pages which were not
physically created/loaded before (load-on-demand). Note that a resident growth
can also be negative e.g. when part of the process is paged out due to lack of
memory or when the process frees dynamically allocated memory. For a process
which started during the last interval, the resident growth reflects the total
resident size of the process at that moment.
If a process has finished during the last interval, no value is shown since
resident memory occupation is not part of the standard process accounting record.
RNET The number of TCP- and UDP packets received by this process. This information
will only be shown when kernel module `netatop' is installed.
If a process has finished during the last interval, no value is shown since
network counters are not part of the standard process accounting record.
RSIZE The total resident memory usage consumed by this process (or user). Notice that
the RSIZE of a process includes all resident memory used by that process, even if
certain memory parts are shared with other processes (see also the explanation of
PSIZE).
If a process has finished during the last interval, no value is shown since
resident memory occupation is not part of the standard process accounting record.
RTPR Realtime priority according the POSIX standard. Value can be 0 for a timesharing
process (policy 'norm', 'btch' or 'idle') or ranges from 1 (lowest) till 99
(highest) for a realtime process (policy 'rr' or 'fifo').
RUID The real user-id under which the process executes.
S The current state of the (main) thread: `R' for running (currently processing or
in the runqueue), `S' for sleeping interruptible (wait for an event to occur),
`D' for sleeping non-interruptible, `Z' for zombie (waiting to be synchronized
with its parent process), `T' for stopped (suspended or traced), `W' for
swapping, and `E' (exit) for processes which have finished during the last
interval.
SGID The saved group-id of the process.
SNET The number of TCP and UDP packets transmitted by this process. This information
will only be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
ST The status of a process.
The first position indicates if the process has been started during the last
interval (the value N means 'new process').
The second position indicates if the process has been finished during the last
interval.
The value E means 'exit' on the process' own initiative; the exit code is
displayed in the column `EXC'.
The value S means that the process has been terminated unvoluntarily by a signal;
the signal number is displayed in the in the column `EXC'.
The value C means that the process has been terminated unvoluntarily by a signal,
producing a core dump in its current directory; the signal number is displayed in
the column `EXC'.
STDATE The start date of the process.
STTIME The start time of the process.
SUID The saved user-id of the process.
SWAPSZ The swap space consumed by this process (or user).
SYSCPU CPU time consumption of this process in system mode (kernel mode), usually due to
system call handling.
TCPRASZ The average size of a received TCP buffer in bytes. This information will only
be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
TCPRCV The number of TCP packets received for this process. This information will only
be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
TCPSASZ The average size of a transmitted TCP buffer in bytes. This information will
only be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
TCPSND The number of TCP packets transmitted for this process. This information will
only be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
THR Total number of threads within this process. All related threads are contained
in a thread group, represented by atop as one line or as a separate line when the
'y' key (or -y flag) is active.
On Linux 2.4 systems it is hardly possible to determine which threads (i.e.
processes) are related to the same thread group. Every thread is represented by
atop as a separate line.
TID Thread-id. All threads within a process run with the same PID but with a
different TID. This value is shown for individual threads in multi-threaded
processes (when using the key 'y').
TRUN Number of threads within this process that are in the state 'running' (R).
TSLPI Number of threads within this process that are in the state 'interruptible
sleeping' (S).
TSLPU Number of threads within this process that are in the state 'uninterruptible
sleeping' (D).
UDPRASZ The average size of a received UDP packet in bytes. This information will only
be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
UDPRCV The number of UDP packets received by this process. This information will only
be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
UDPSASZ The average size of a transmitted UDP packets in bytes. This information will
only be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
UDPSND The number of UDP packets transmitted by this process. This information will
only be shown when the kernel module `netatop' is loaded.
USRCPU CPU time consumption of this process in user mode, due to processing the own
program text.
VDATA The virtual memory size of the private data used by this process (including heap
and shared library data).
VGROW The amount of virtual memory that the process has grown during the last interval.
A virtual growth can be caused by e.g. issuing a malloc() or attaching a shared
memory segment. Note that a virtual growth can also be negative by e.g. issuing a
free() or detaching a shared memory segment. For a process which started during
the last interval, the virtual growth reflects the total virtual size of the
process at that moment.
If a process has finished during the last interval, no value is shown since
virtual memory occupation is not part of the standard process accounting record.
VPID Virtual process-id (within an OpenVZ container). If a process has been started
and finished during the last interval, a `?' is shown because the virtual
process-id is not part of the standard process accounting record.
VSIZE The total virtual memory usage consumed by this process (or user).
If a process has finished during the last interval, no value is shown since
virtual memory occupation is not part of the standard process accounting record.
VSLIBS The virtual memory size of the (shared) text of all shared libraries used by this
process.
VSTACK The virtual memory size of the (private) stack used by this process
VSTEXT The virtual memory size of the (shared) text of the executable program.
WCHAN Wait channel of thread in sleep state, i.e. the name of the kernel function in
which the thread has been put asleep.
Since determining the name string of the kernel function is a relatively time-
consuming task, the 'W' key (or '-W' flag) should be active.
WRDSK When the kernel maintains standard io statistics (>= 2.6.20):
The write data transfer issued physically on disk (so writing to the disk cache
is not accounted for). This counter is maintained for the application process
that writes its data to the cache (assuming that this data is physically
transferred to disk later on). Notice that disk I/O needed for swapping is not
taken into account.
Unfortunately, the kernel aggregates the data transfer of a process to the data
transfer of its parent process when terminating, so you might see transfers for
(parent) processes like cron, bash or init, that are not really issued by them.
WCANCL When the kernel maintains standard io statistics (>= 2.6.20):
The write data transfer previously accounted for this process or another process
that has been cancelled. Suppose that a process writes new data to a file and
that data is removed again before the cache buffers have been flushed to disk.
Then the original process shows the written data as WRDSK, while the process that
removes/truncates the file shows the unflushed removed data as WCANCL.
PARSEABLE OUTPUT
With the flag -P followed by a list of one or more labels (comma-separated), parseable
output is produced for each sample. The labels that can be specified for system-level
statistics correspond to the labels (first verb of each line) that can be found in the
interactive output: "CPU", "cpu", "CPL", "GPU", "MEM", "SWP", "PAG", "PSI", "LVM", "MDD",
"DSK", "NFM", "NFC", "NFS", "NET", "IFB", "NUM" and "NUC".
For process-level statistics special labels are available: "PRG" (general), "PRC" (cpu),
"PRE" (GPU), "PRM" (memory), "PRD" (disk, only if "storage accounting" is active) and
"PRN" (network, only if the kernel module 'netatop' has been installed).
With the label "ALL", all system and process level statistics are shown.
The command and command line in the parseable output might contain spaces and are
therefore by default surrounded by parenthesis. However, since a space is often used as
separator between the fields by parsing tools, with the additional flag -Z it is possible
to exchange the spaces in the command (line) by underscores and omit the parenthesis.
For every interval all requested lines are shown whereafter atop shows a line just
containing the label "SEP" as a separator before the lines for the next sample are
generated.
When a sample contains the values since boot, atop shows a line just containing the label
"RESET" before the lines for this sample are generated.
The first part of each output-line consists of the following six fields: label (the name
of the label), host (the name of this machine), epoch (the time of this interval as number
of seconds since 1-1-1970), date (date of this interval in format YYYY/MM/DD), time (time
of this interval in format HH:MM:SS), and interval (number of seconds elapsed for this
interval).
The subsequent fields of each output-line depend on the label:
CPU Subsequent fields: total number of clock-ticks per second for this machine,
number of processors, consumption for all CPUs in system mode (clock-ticks),
consumption for all CPUs in user mode (clock-ticks), consumption for all CPUs in
user mode for niced processes (clock-ticks), consumption for all CPUs in idle
mode (clock-ticks), consumption for all CPUs in wait mode (clock-ticks),
consumption for all CPUs in irq mode (clock-ticks), consumption for all CPUs in
softirq mode (clock-ticks), consumption for all CPUs in steal mode (clock-ticks),
consumption for all CPUs in guest mode (clock-ticks) overlapping user mode,
frequency of all CPUs, frequency percentage of all CPUs, instructions executed by
all CPUs and cycles for all CPUs.
cpu Subsequent fields: total number of clock-ticks per second for this machine,
processor-number, consumption for this CPU in system mode (clock-ticks),
consumption for this CPU in user mode (clock-ticks), consumption for this CPU in
user mode for niced processes (clock-ticks), consumption for this CPU in idle
mode (clock-ticks), consumption for this CPU in wait mode (clock-ticks),
consumption for this CPU in irq mode (clock-ticks), consumption for this CPU in
softirq mode (clock-ticks), consumption for this CPU in steal mode (clock-ticks),
consumption for this CPU in guest mode (clock-ticks) overlapping user mode,
frequency of this CPU, frequency percentage of this CPU, instructions executed by
this CPU and cycles for this CPU.
CPL Subsequent fields: number of processors, load average for last minute, load
average for last five minutes, load average for last fifteen minutes, number of
context-switches, and number of device interrupts.
GPU Subsequent fields: GPU number, bus-id string, type of GPU string, GPU busy
percentage during last second (-1 if not available), memory busy percentage
during last second (-1 if not available), total memory size (KiB), used memory
(KiB) at this moment, number of samples taken during interval, cumulative GPU
busy percentage during the interval (to be divided by the number of samples for
the average busy percentage, -1 if not available), cumulative memory busy
percentage during the interval (to be divided by the number of samples for the
average busy percentage, -1 if not available), and cumulative memory occupation
during the interval (to be divided by the number of samples for the average
occupation).
MEM Subsequent fields: page size for this machine (in bytes), size of physical memory
(pages), size of free memory (pages), size of page cache (pages), size of buffer
cache (pages), size of slab (pages), dirty pages in cache (pages), reclaimable
part of slab (pages), total size of vmware's balloon pages (pages), total size of
shared memory (pages), size of resident shared memory (pages), size of swapped
shared memory (pages), huge page size (in bytes), total size of huge pages (huge
pages), size of free huge pages (huge pages), size of ARC (cache) of ZFSonlinux
(pages), size of sharing pages for KSM (pages), and size of shared pages for KSM
(pages).
SWP Subsequent fields: page size for this machine (in bytes), size of swap (pages),
size of free swap (pages), size of swap cache (pages), size of committed space
(pages), limit for committed space (pages), size of the swap cache (pages), size
of compressed pages stored in zswap (pages), and total size of compressed pool in
zswap (pages).
PAG Subsequent fields: page size for this machine (in bytes), number of page scans,
number of allocstalls, 0 (future use), number of swapins, number of swapouts,
number of oomkills (-1 when counter not present), number of process stalls to run
memory compaction, number of pages successfully migrated in total, and number of
NUMA pages migrated.
PSI Subsequent fields: PSI statistics present on this system (n or y), CPU some
avg10, CPU some avg60, CPU some avg300, CPU some accumulated microseconds during
interval, memory some avg10, memory some avg60, memory some avg300, memory some
accumulated microseconds during interval, memory full avg10, memory full avg60,
memory full avg300, memory full accumulated microseconds during interval, I/O
some avg10, I/O some avg60, I/O some avg300, I/O some accumulated microseconds
during interval, I/O full avg10, I/O full avg60, I/O full avg300, and I/O full
accumulated microseconds during interval.
LVM/MDD/DSK
For every logical volume/multiple device/hard disk one line is shown.
Subsequent fields: name, number of milliseconds spent for I/O, number of reads
issued, number of sectors transferred for reads, number of writes issued, number
of sectors transferred for write, number of discards issued (-1 if not
supported), and number of sectors transferred for discards.
NFM Subsequent fields: mounted NFS filesystem, total number of bytes read, total
number of bytes written, number of bytes read by normal system calls, number of
bytes written by normal system calls, number of bytes read by direct I/O, number
of bytes written by direct I/O, number of pages read by memory-mapped I/O, and
number of pages written by memory-mapped I/O.
NFC Subsequent fields: number of transmitted RPCs, number of transmitted read RPCs,
number of transmitted write RPCs, number of RPC retransmissions, and number of
authorization refreshes.
NFS Subsequent fields: number of handled RPCs, number of received read RPCs, number
of received write RPCs, number of bytes read by clients, number of bytes written
by clients, number of RPCs with bad format, number of RPCs with bad
authorization, number of RPCs from bad client, total number of handled network
requests, number of handled network requests via TCP, number of handled network
requests via UDP, number of handled TCP connections, number of hits on reply
cache, number of misses on reply cache, and number of uncached requests.
NET First, one line is produced for the upper layers of the TCP/IP stack.
Subsequent fields: the verb "upper", number of packets received by TCP, number of
packets transmitted by TCP, number of packets received by UDP, number of packets
transmitted by UDP, number of packets received by IP, number of packets
transmitted by IP, number of packets delivered to higher layers by IP, number of
packets forwarded by IP, number of input errors (UDP), number of noport errors
(UDP), number of active opens (TCP), number of passive opens (TCP), number of
passive opens (TCP), number of established connections at this moment (TCP),
number of retransmitted segments (TCP), number of input errors (TCP), and number
of output resets (TCP).
Next, one line is shown for every interface.
Subsequent fields: name of the interface, number of packets received by the
interface, number of bytes received by the interface, number of packets
transmitted by the interface, number of bytes transmitted by the interface,
interface speed, and duplex mode (0=half, 1=full).
IFB Subsequent fields: name of the InfiniBand interface, port number, number of
lanes, maximum rate (Mbps), number of bytes received, number of bytes
transmitted, number of packets received, and number of packets transmitted.
NUM Subsequent fields: NUMA node number, page size for this machine (in bytes), the
fragmentation percentage of this node, size of physical memory (pages), size of
free memory (pages), recently (active) used memory (pages), less recently
(inactive) used memory (pages), size of cached file data (pages), dirty pages in
cache (pages), slab memory being used for kernel mallocs (pages), slab memory
that is reclaimable (pages), shared memory including tmpfs (pages), and total
huge pages (pages).
NUC Subsequent fields: NUMA node number, number of processors for this node,
consumption for node CPUs in system mode (clock-ticks), consumption for node CPUs
in user mode (clock-ticks), consumption for node CPUs in user mode for niced
processes (clock-ticks), consumption for node CPUs in idle mode (clock-ticks),
consumption for node CPUs in wait mode (clock-ticks), consumption for node CPUs
in irq mode (clock-ticks), consumption for node CPUs in softirq mode (clock-
ticks), consumption for node CPUs in steal mode (clock-ticks), and consumption
for node CPUs in guest mode (clock-ticks) overlapping user mode.
PRG For every process one line is shown.
Subsequent fields: PID (unique ID of task), name (between parenthesis or
underscores for spaces), state, real uid, real gid, TGID (group number of related
tasks/threads), total number of threads, exit code (in case of fatal signal:
signal number + 256), start time (epoch), full command line (between parenthesis
or underscores for spaces), PPID, number of threads in state 'running' (R),
number of threads in state 'interruptible sleeping' (S), number of threads in
state 'uninterruptible sleeping' (D), effective uid, effective gid, saved uid,
saved gid, filesystem uid, filesystem gid, elapsed time (hertz), is_process
(y/n), OpenVZ virtual pid (VPID), OpenVZ container id (CTID), Docker container
id (CID), and indication if the task is newly started during this interval ('N').
PRC For every process one line is shown.
Subsequent fields: PID, name (between parenthesis or underscores for spaces),
state, total number of clock-ticks per second for this machine, CPU-consumption
in user mode (clockticks), CPU-consumption in system mode (clockticks), nice
value, priority, realtime priority, scheduling policy, current CPU, sleep
average, TGID (group number of related tasks/threads), is_process (y/n), runqueue
delay in nanoseconds for this thread or for all threads (in case of process), and
wait channel of this thread (between parenthesis or underscores for spaces).
PRE For every process one line is shown.
Subsequent fields: PID, name (between parenthesis or underscores for spaces),
process state, GPU state (A for active, E for exited, N for no GPU user), number
of GPUs used by this process, bitlist reflecting used GPUs, GPU busy percentage
during interval, memory busy percentage during interval, memory occupation (KiB)
at this moment cumulative memory occupation (KiB) during interval, and number of
samples taken during interval.
PRM For every process one line is shown.
Subsequent fields: PID, name (between parenthesis or underscores for spaces),
state, page size for this machine (in bytes), virtual memory size (Kbytes),
resident memory size (Kbytes), shared text memory size (Kbytes), virtual memory
growth (Kbytes), resident memory growth (Kbytes), number of minor page faults,
number of major page faults, virtual library exec size (Kbytes), virtual data
size (Kbytes), virtual stack size (Kbytes), swap space used (Kbytes), TGID (group
number of related tasks/threads), is_process (y/n), proportional set size
(Kbytes) if in 'R' option is specified and virtually locked memory space
(Kbytes).
PRD For every process one line is shown.
Subsequent fields: PID, name (between parenthesis or underscores for spaces),
state, obsoleted kernel patch installed ('n'), standard io statistics used ('y'
or 'n'), number of reads on disk, cumulative number of sectors read, number of
writes on disk, cumulative number of sectors written, cancelled number of written
sectors, TGID (group number of related tasks/threads), obsoleted value ('n'), and
is_process (y/n).
If the standard I/O statistics (>= 2.6.20) are not used, the disk I/O counters
per process are not relevant. The counters 'number of reads on disk' and 'number
of writes on disk' are obsoleted anyhow.
PRN For every process one line is shown.
Subsequent fields: PID, name (between parenthesis or underscores for spaces),
state, kernel module 'netatop' loaded ('y' or 'n'), number of TCP-packets
transmitted, cumulative size of TCP-packets transmitted, number of TCP-packets
received, cumulative size of TCP-packets received, number of UDP-packets
transmitted, cumulative size of UDP-packets transmitted, number of UDP-packets
received, cumulative size of UDP-packets transmitted, number of raw packets
transmitted (obsolete, always 0), number of raw packets received (obsolete,
always 0), TGID (group number of related tasks/threads) and is_process (y/n).
If the kernel module is not active, the network I/O counters per process are not
relevant.
SIGNALS
By sending the SIGUSR1 signal to atop a new sample will be forced, even if the current
timer interval has not exceeded yet. The behavior is similar to pressing the `t` key in an
interactive session.
By sending the SIGUSR2 signal to atop a final sample will be forced after which atop will
terminate.
EXAMPLES
To monitor the current system load interactively with an interval of 5 seconds:
atop 5
To monitor the system load and write it to a file (in plain ASCII) with an interval of one
minute during half an hour with active processes sorted on memory consumption:
atop -M 60 30 > /log/atop.mem
Store information about the system and process activity in binary compressed form to a
file with an interval of ten minutes during an hour:
atop -w /tmp/atop.raw 600 6
View the contents of this file interactively:
atop -r /tmp/atop.raw
View the processor and disk utilization of this file in parseable format:
atop -PCPU,DSK -r /tmp/atop.raw
View the contents of today's standard logfile interactively:
atop -r
View the contents of the standard logfile of the day before yesterday interactively:
atop -r yy
View the contents of the standard logfile of 2014, June 7 from 02:00 PM onwards
interactively:
atop -r 20140607 -b 1400
Concatenate all raw log files of January 2020 and generate parsable output about the CPU
utilization:
atopcat /var/log/atop/atop_202001?? | atop -r - -PCPU
FILES
/run/pacct_shadow.d/
Directory containing the process accounting shadow files that are used by atop when
the atopacctd daemon is active.
/var/cache/atop.d/atop.acct
File in which the kernel writes the accounting records when atop itself has activated
the process accounting mechanism.
/etc/atoprc
Configuration file containing system-wide default values. See related man-page.
~/.atoprc
Configuration file containing personal default values. See related man-page.
/etc/default/atop
Configuration file to overrule the settings of atop that runs in the background to
create the daily logfile. This file is created when atop is installed. The default
settings are:
LOGOPTS=""
LOGINTERVAL=600
LOGGENERATIONS=28
/var/log/atop/atop_YYYYMMDD
Raw file, where YYYYMMDD are digits representing the current date. This name is used
by atop running in the background as default name for the output file, and by atop as
default name for the input file when using the -r flag.
All binary system and process level data in this file has been stored in compressed
format.
/run/netatop.log
File that contains the netpertask structs containing the network counters of exited
processes. These structs are written by the netatopd daemon and read by atop after
reading the standard process accounting records.
SEE ALSO
atopsar(1), atopconvert(1), atopcat(1), atoprc(5), atopacctd(8), netatop(4), netatopd(8),
atopgpud(8), logrotate(8)
https://www.atoptool.nl
AUTHOR
Gerlof Langeveld (gerlof.langeveld@atoptool.nl)
JC van Winkel