Keeping track of process CPU %

dive · 03-30-2006, 12:02 PM

Just wondered if anyone knows a way of logging top command for maybe an hour or so. I seem to get a process taking a high % of cpu, which I notice when playing fullscreen games that begin to stutter and slow down. This has only happened during the last few weeks and I suspect maybe fetchmail or a related process is the cause but would like to know for certain.

celejar · 03-30-2006, 02:04 PM

From the top(1) man page:

Quote:

-b : Batch mode operation
Starts top in 'Batch mode', which could be useful for sending output from top to other programs or to a file. In this mode, top will not accept input and runs until the iterations limit you've set with the '-n' command-line option or until killed.

So just set the iteration number and delay time (with -n xxx -d yyy) and redirect the output to your logfile - voila!

amon · 03-30-2006, 02:05 PM

I hate to say something that I find annoying in my posts but...

If you look at the man page:

Code:

man top

it will say that you can use the -b switch for batch mode. this produces a nice output that you can pipe to annother application such as

Code:

top -b|grep cron

this allows you to watch an individual program

or you can output to a text file (using output redirect):

Code:

top -b>toplog.txt

or a combination of the two:

Code:

top -b|grep cron>toplog.txt

that answer the question?

p.s. if you didn't know about the man function or the pipe or redirecting of output then sorry about the RTFM

sadarax · 03-30-2006, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amon

or a combination of the two:

Code:

top -b|grep cron>toplog.txt

You may also want to use the '>>' to append to the file, instead of overwrite it.

dive · 03-30-2006, 02:42 PM

Thx for the info, I did indeed try top -b | head and top -b > toplog but in the first case it stopped after 5 secs or so, and in the 2nd it didnt seem to be working as i expected. IE I could only get the processes at the moment I ctrl-c'd to end it.

Probably need to experiment with iterations.

foo_bar_foo · 03-30-2006, 02:45 PM

try running this
you can redirect it to a file or whatever and change intevals (seconds)
have to chmod 755 to make it runnable
oh yea the fourth collumn is recent CPU activity

Code:

#!/bin/bash
INTERVAL=10
LIMIT=3600 
while [ "$SECONDS" -le "$LIMIT" ]
do
    date
    ps -ef | egrep -v "STIME|$LOGNAME" | sort +3 -r | head -n 15
    sleep $INTERVAL
done
exit 0