One-stop performance analysis using atop [LWN.net]

One-stop performance analysis using atop

Posted Jun 14, 2010 0:47 UTC (Mon) by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
In reply to: One-stop performance analysis using atop by oak
Parent article: One-stop performance analysis using atop

The problem with these fancier top programs (e.g. compared to simple Busybox top) is that they take more CPU and are slower to start. If your system is sometimes _really_ slow, but only temporarily, it matters a lot how fast "top" starts and can update its screen.

The nice thing with atop is that it has per-process, historical info. Assuming you use the debian package which sets up cronjobs and logrotate, you can run sudo atop -r, use t and T to navigate the day in 10s slices, find the time the system slowed down, and pinpoint the problem process and the scarce resource. Thanks to process accounting, data is logged reliably under load.

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