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by linedash 3001 days ago
atop is best top. One of the few bits of software I evangelise.

Writes to replayable binary logfile with 10 minute system-state snapshots and uses process accounting to ensure it see's every process during that time.

Gives more metrics than any other top; including network, disk and all the counters that you have to check the man page to know what they refer to.

Its counterpart atopsar lets you replay the data for specific stats in an easily viewable format; i.e; - atopsar -m - this shows the memory stats for todays logfile in 10 minute increments.

It goes on every single server I manage without exception. With atop you can actually see why it died instead of guessing from old log entries.

Screenshot of atop : https://www.atoptool.nl/images/screenshots/genericw.png

Example output of atopsar:

  # atopsar -m
  
  *snipped*  2.6.32-896.16.1.lve1.4.51.el6.x86_64  #1 SMP Wed Jan 17 13:19:23 EST 2018  x86_64  2018/03/27
  
  -------------------------- analysis date: 2018/03/27 --------------------------
  
  00:00:02  memtotal memfree buffers cached dirty slabmem  swptotal swpfree _mem_
  00:10:02    14027M    928M    839M  6335M    1M   4645M        0M      0M
  00:20:02    14027M    963M    842M  6393M    1M   4641M        0M      0M
  00:30:02    14027M    756M    873M  6617M    1M   4638M        0M      0M
  00:40:02    14027M    576M    871M  6596M    3M   4634M        0M      0M
https://www.atoptool.nl/index.php
1 comments
teddyh 3000 days ago
I sometimes hear about “atop”, wonder “Why don’t I have this installed?”, install it, discover that it starts (and requires) two additional daemon processes, at which point I remember, and promptly uninstall it again.
link
linedash 3000 days ago
Yes; the bit that manages the process accounting and the other bit for writing the log files...

Personally I consider two processes and 40MB of ram to be negligible for the benefits it brings.

You can indeed use it as a standalone top without either of these processes too. You're just giving up one of the main benefits (replayable logs) outside of the extra stats.

In short; you're moaning about what exactly?

link