20 Command Line Tools to Monitor Linux Performance - Part 1

It’s really very tough job for every System or Network administrator to monitor and debug Linux System Performance problems every day. After being a Linux Administrator for 5 years in IT industry, I came to know that how hard is to monitor and keep systems up and running. For this reason, we’ve compiled the list of Top 20 frequently used command line monitoring tools that might be useful for every Linux/Unix System Administrator. These commands are available under all flavors of Linux and can be useful to monitor and find the actual causes of performance problem. This list of commands shown here are very enough for you to pick the one that is suitable for your monitoring scenario.

Linux Command Line Monitoring

1. Top – Linux Process Monitoring

Linux Top command is a performance monitoring program which is used frequently by many system administrators to monitor Linux performance and it is available under many Linux/Unix like operating systems. The top command used to dipslay all the running and active real-time processes in ordered list and updates it regularly. It display CPU usage, Memory usage, Swap Memory, Cache Size, Buffer Size, Process PID, User, Commands and much more. It also shows high memory and cpu utilization of a running processess. The top command is much userful for system administrator to monitor and take correct action when required. Let’s see top command in action.

Top Command Example

For more examples of Top command read : 12 TOP Command Examples in Linux

2. VmStat – Virtual Memory Statistics

Linux VmStat command used to display statistics of virtual memory, kernerl threads, disks, system processes, I/O blocks, interrupts, CPU activity and much more. By default vmstat command is not available under Linux systems you need to install a package called sysstat that includes a vmstat program. The common usage of command format is.

For more Vmstat examples read : 6 Vmstat Command Examples in Linux

3. Lsof – List Open Files

Lsof command used in many Linux/Unix like system that is used to display list of all the open files and the processes. The open files included are disk files, network sockets, pipes, devices and processes. One of the main reason for using this command is when a disk cannot be unmounted and displays the error that files are being used or opened. With this commmand you can easily identify which files are in use. The most common format for this command is.

More lsof command usage and examples : 10 lsof Command Examples in Linux

4. Tcpdump – Network Packet Analyzer

Tcpdump one of the most widely used command-line network packet analyzer or packets sniffer program that is used capture or filter TCP/IP packets that received or transferred on a specific interface over a network. It also provides a option to save captured packages in a file for later analysis. tcpdump is almost available in all major Linux distributions.

For more tcpdump usage read : 12 Tcpdump Command Examples in Linux

5. Netstat – Network Statistics

Netstat is a command line tool for monitoring incoming and outgoing network packets statistics as well as interface statistics. It is very useful tool for every system administrator to monitor network performance and troubleshoot network related problems.

More Netstat examples : 20 Netstat Command Examples in Linux.

6. Htop – Linux Process Monitoring

Htop is a much advanced interactive and real time Linux process monitoring tool. This is much similar to Linux top command but it has some rich features like user friendly interface to manage process, shortcut keys, vertical and horizontal view of the processes and much more. Htop is a third party tool and doesn’t included in Linux systems, you need to install it using YUM package manager tool. For more information on installation read our article below.

Htop Command Example Screenshot

For Htop installation read : Install Htop (Linux Process Monitoring) in Linux

7. Iotop – Monitor Linux Disk I/O

Iotop is also much similar to top command and Htop program, but it has accounting function to monitor and display real time Disk I/O and processes. This tool is much useful for finding the exact process and high used disk read/writes of the processes.

Iotop Command Example Screenshot

For Ioptop installation and usage read : Install Iotop in Linux

8. Iostat – Input/Output Statistics

IoStat is simple tool that will collect and show system input and output storage device statistics. This tool is often used to trace storage device performance issues including devices, local disks, remote disks such as NFS.

For more Iostat usage and examples visit : 6 Iostat Command Examples in Linux

9. IPTraf – Real Time IP LAN Monitoring

IPTraf is an open source console-based real time network (IP LAN) monitoring utility for Linux. It collects a variety of information such as IP traffic monitor that passes over the network, including TCP flag information, ICMP details, TCP/UDP traffic breakdowns, TCP connection packet and byne counts. It also gathers information of general and detaled interface statistics of TCP, UDP, IP, ICMP, non-IP, IP checksum errors, interface activity etc.

IP Traffic Monitor

For more information and usage of IPTraf tool, please visit : IPTraf Network Monitoring Tool

10. Psacct or Acct – Monitor User Activity

psacct or acct tools are very useful for monitoring each users activity on the system. Both daemons runs in the background and keeps a close watch on the overall activity of each user on the system and also what resources are being consumed by them.

These tools are very useful for system administrators to track each users activity like what they are doing, what commands they issued, how much resources are used by them, how long they are active on the system etc.

For installation and example usage of commands read the article on Monitor User Activity with psacct or acct

Summer : https://www.tecmint.com/command-line-tools-to-monitor-linux-performance/