30 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know
-
- 93
Need to monitor Linux server performance? Try these built-in commands and a few add-on tools. Most distributions come with tons of Linux monitoring tools. These tools provide metrics which can be used to get information about system activities. You can use these tools to find the possible causes of a performance problem. The commands discussed below are some of the most fundamental commands when it comes to system analysis and debugging Linux server issues such as:
- Finding out system bottlenecks
- Disk (storage) bottlenecks
- CPU and memory bottlenecks
- Network bottleneck.
| Tutorial details | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty level | Intermediate |
| Root privileges | Yes |
| Requirements | Linux terminal |
| Category | System Management |
| OS compatibility | Alma • Alpine • Arch • CentOS • Debian • Fedora • Linux • Mint • openSUSE • Pop!_OS • RHEL • Rocky • Stream • SUSE • Ubuntu • WSL |
| Est. reading time | 19 minutes |
1. top – Process activity monitoring command
top command display Linux processes. It provides a dynamic real-time view of a running system i.e. actual process activity. By default, it displays the most CPU-intensive tasks running on the server and updates the list every five seconds.
Fig.01: Linux top command
Commonly Used Hot Keys With top Linux monitoring tools
Here is a list of useful hot keys:
| Hot Key | Usage |
|---|---|
| t | Displays summary information off and on. |
| m | Displays memory information off and on. |
| A | Sorts the display by top consumers of various system resources. Useful for quick identification of performance-hungry tasks on a system. |
| f | Enters an interactive configuration screen for top. Helpful for setting up top for a specific task. |
| o | Enables you to interactively select the ordering within top. |
| r | Issues renice command. |
| k | Issues kill command. |
| z | Turn on or off color/mono |
How do I Find Out Linux CPU Utilization?
2. vmstat – Virtual memory statistics
The vmstat command reports information about processes, memory, paging, block IO, traps, and cpu activity.# vmstat 3
Sample Outputs:
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu------ r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 0 0 2540988 522188 5130400 0 0 2 32 4 2 4 1 96 0 0 1 0 0 2540988 522188 5130400 0 0 0 720 1199 665 1 0 99 0 0 0 0 0 2540956 522188 5130400 0 0 0 0 1151 1569 4 1 95 0 0 0 0 0 2540956 522188 5130500 0 0 0 6 1117 439 1 0 99 0 0 0 0 0 2540940 522188 5130512 0 0 0 536 1189 932 1 0 98 0 0 0 0 0 2538444 522188 5130588 0 0 0 0 1187 1417 4 1 96 0 0 0 0 0 2490060 522188 5130640 0 0 0 18 1253 1123 5 1 94 0 0
Display Memory Utilization Slabinfo
# vmstat -m
Get Information About Active / Inactive Memory Pages
# vmstat -a
See “How do I find out Linux Resource utilization to detect system bottlenecks?” for more info.
Linux Find Out What Process Are Using Swap Space
Use the smem command:# smem
Another option is to combine pgrep command with the grep command to find out SWAP mem usage:# pgrep memcached
# grep --color VmSwap /proc/48440/status
Linux Find Out What Process Are Using Swap Space
3. w – Find out who is logged on and what they are doing
We use the w command displays information about the users currently on the machine, and their processes.# w username
# w vivek
Sample Outputs:
https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?gdpr=0&us_privacy=1—&client=ca-pub-7825705102693166&output=html&h=280&adk=1364362194&adf=3494852984&pi=t.aa~a.1798617643~i.44~rp.4&w=644&fwrn=4&fwrnh=100&lmt=1672924998&num_ads=1&rafmt=1&armr=3&sem=mc&pwprc=9276298954&ad_type=text_image&format=644×280&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyberciti.biz%2Ftips%2Ftop-linux-monitoring-tools.html&fwr=0&pra=3&rh=161&rw=644&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&wgl=1&fa=27&uach=WyJXaW5kb3dzIiwiMTUuMC4wIiwieDg2IiwiIiwiMTA4LjAuNTM1OS4xMjUiLFtdLGZhbHNlLG51bGwsIjY0IixbWyJOb3Q_QV9CcmFuZCIsIjguMC4wLjAiXSxbIkNocm9taXVtIiwiMTA4LjAuNTM1OS4xMjUiXSxbIkdvb2dsZSBDaHJvbWUiLCIxMDguMC41MzU5LjEyNSJdXSxmYWxzZV0.&dt=1672934615662&bpp=2&bdt=2361&idt=3&shv=r20230103&mjsv=m202212010101&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3Dac7e0204d7010890-2225af792dd900ed%3AT%3D1672928645%3ART%3D1672928645%3AS%3DALNI_MYGgTI6s5iWC4F7Ry-T8V6lporB9w&gpic=UID%3D00000b9e9e1e75bf%3AT%3D1672928645%3ART%3D1672928645%3AS%3DALNI_MZNogsSPlIbVtbpcFXLVvuv7103KQ&prev_fmts=0x0%2C644x280%2C336x600%2C331x250%2C331x250%2C1005x124&nras=3&correlator=5086270406427&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=788109010.1672928643&ga_sid=1672934615&ga_hid=1722653086&ga_fc=1&ga_cid=1912941346.1672928644&u_tz=330&u_his=2&u_h=864&u_w=1536&u_ah=816&u_aw=1536&u_cd=24&u_sd=1.25&dmc=8&adx=248&ady=5090&biw=1519&bih=746&scr_x=0&scr_y=2112&eid=44759875%2C44759926%2C44759842%2C44778780%2C44780792&oid=2&psts=ACgb8tv1o9pi1i-4NIYlQxQeTkWsMI6SgXoBY3UbASLrSWb2HX568SRZ4KWqBPw3LZRGalJca7He47sCZKZKMDM%2CACgb8tu74u9BPx4xGPB3SnhBIzBikLTXdeLHZmbXkekf6rxTKU1YvorxyTpBmuu5AdspjPS4V3ee1iWtn9_i99U%2CACgb8ttwQ_l4u_5ZhP0DrWv8rqgsnCLNl50E0QqXP8YCRveMUnBoZ32yVK_63UkAXnjvc-gAgrlLz6I0WbDfRQsY1xk8QUqpi4t9eM-5_kzz%2CACgb8tvNVE0XifaJy9Q4vgyu4I1iLbXmytZ6Z2RYqcSVFmvTCHmesPbhWT-l94JZUkBBc4zVwYEBtA1XV_msqaU%2CACgb8tut6X07PMj9NwLyHZo_XSb7DfVYOH4kNSC0HO_QO58VQcSIcBklMawzX2hwYsaWpP1aHgPs7DS0BfqT7v4&pvsid=2051868736340426&tmod=1290824536&uas=1&nvt=1&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyberciti.biz%2F&eae=0&fc=1408&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C1536%2C0%2C1536%2C816%2C1536%2C746&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7Cs%7C&abl=NS&fu=128&bc=31&ifi=6&uci=a!6&btvi=4&fsb=1&xpc=srsI3QAG51&p=https%3A//www.cyberciti.biz&dtd=48660
17:58:47 up 5 days, 20:28, 2 users, load average: 0.36, 0.26, 0.24 USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT root pts/0 10.1.3.145 14:55 5.00s 0.04s 0.02s vim /etc/resolv.conf root pts/1 10.1.3.145 17:43 0.00s 0.03s 0.00s w
4. uptime – Tell how long the Linux system has been running
Need to monitor Linux server performance? Try these built-in commands and a few add-on tools. Most distributions come with tons of Linux monitoring tools. These tools provide metrics which can be used to get information about system activities. You can use these tools to find the possible causes of a…
Need to monitor Linux server performance? Try these built-in commands and a few add-on tools. Most distributions come with tons of Linux monitoring tools. These tools provide metrics which can be used to get information about system activities. You can use these tools to find the possible causes of a…