FreeBSD Man Pages

top(1)

NAME

       top - display and update information about the top cpu processes

SYNOPSIS

       top  [ -SbiInqutv ] [ -dcount ] [ -stime ] [ -ofield ] [ -Uusername ] [
       -mio|cpu ] [ number ]

DESCRIPTION

       Top displays the top processes on the system and  periodically  updates
       this  information.   If standard output is an intelligent terminal (see
       below) then as many processes as will fit on the  terminal  screen  are
       displayed  by  default.	 Otherwise,  a	good  number of them are shown
       (around 20).  Raw cpu percentage is used to  rank  the  processes.   If
       number  is  given,  then  the  top  number  processes will be displayed
       instead of the default.

       Top makes a distinction between terminals that support  advanced  capa-
       bilities and those that do not.	This distinction affects the choice of
       defaults for certain options.  In the remainder of  this  document,  an
       "intelligent"  terminal	is  one that supports cursor addressing, clear
       screen, and clear to end of line.  Conversely, a "dumb" terminal is one
       that  does  not	support  such features.  If the output of top is redi-
       rected to a file, it acts as if it were being run on a dumb terminal.

OPTIONS

       -S     Show system processes in the  display.   Normally,  system  pro-
	      cesses  such  as	the pager and the swapper are not shown.  This
	      option makes them visible.

       -b     Use "batch" mode.  In this mode, all input from the terminal  is
	      ignored.	Interrupt characters (such as ^C and ^\) still have an
	      effect.  This is the default on a dumb  terminal,  or  when  the
	      output is not a terminal.

       -i     Use  "interactive" mode.	In this mode, any input is immediately
	      read for processing.  See the section on "Interactive Mode"  for
	      an  explanation of which keys perform what functions.  After the
	      command is processed, the screen will  immediately  be  updated,
	      even  if	the  command  was  not	understood.   This mode is the
	      default when standard output is an intelligent terminal.

       -I     Do not display idle processes.  By default,  top	displays  both
	      active and idle processes.

       -t     Do not display the top process.

       -mdisplay
	      Display either 'cpu' or 'io' statistics.	Default is 'cpu'.

       -n     Use  "non-interactive" mode.  This is identical to "batch" mode.

       -q     Renice top to -20 so that it will run faster.  This can be  used
	      when  the system is being very sluggish to improve the possibil-
	      ity of discovering the problem.  This option can only be used by
	      root.
	      ately.   No  other  processing  takes  place when this option is
	      used.  To see current revision information while top is running,
	      use the help command "?".

       -dcount
	      Show only count displays, then exit.  A display is considered to
	      be one update of the screen.  This option  allows  the  user  to
	      select  the  number of displays he wants to see before top auto-
	      matically exits.	For intelligent terminals, no upper  limit  is
	      set.  The default is 1 for dumb terminals.

       -stime Set  the	delay  between	screen	updates  to time seconds.  The
	      default delay between updates is 2 seconds.

       -ofield
	      Sort the process display area on the specified field.  The field
	      name  is	the  name  of the column as seen in the output, but in
	      lower case.  Likely values are "cpu", "size", "res", and "time",
	      but  may vary on different operating systems.  Note that not all
	      operating systems support this option.

       -Uusername
	      Show only those processes owned by username.  This  option  cur-
	      rently  only  accepts usernames and will not understand uid num-
	      bers.

       Both count and number fields can be specified as "infinite", indicating
       that  they  can	stretch  as  far as possible.  This is accomplished by
       using any proper prefix	of  the  keywords  "infinity",	"maximum",  or
       "all".	The  default for count on an intelligent terminal is, in fact,
       infinity.

       The environment variable TOP is examined for options before the command
       line  is  scanned.  This enables a user to set his or her own defaults.
       The number of processes to display can also be specified in  the  envi-
       ronment variable TOP.  The options -I, -S, -u, and -t are actually tog-
       gles.  A second specification of any of these options will  negate  the
       first.	Thus  a  user who has the environment variable TOP set to "-I"
       may use the command "top -I" to see idle processes.

INTERACTIVE MODE

       When top is running in "interactive mode", it reads commands  from  the
       terminal and acts upon them accordingly.  In this mode, the terminal is
       put in "CBREAK", so that a character will be processed as soon as it is
       typed.	Almost	always, a key will be pressed when top is between dis-
       plays; that is, while it is waiting for time  seconds  to  elapse.   If
       this is the case, the command will be processed and the display will be
       updated immediately thereafter (reflecting any changes that the command
       may  have  specified).  This happens even if the command was incorrect.
       If a key is pressed while top is in the middle of updating the display,
       it  will finish the update and then process the command.  Some commands
       require additional information, and the user will be  prompted  accord-
       ingly.	While  typing  this  information in, the user's erase and kill
       keys (as set up by the command stty) are recognized, and a newline ter-
       minates the input.

       These commands are currently recognized (^L refers to control-L):

	      Remember	that the next display counts as one, so typing d1 will
	      make top show one final display and then immediately exit.

       m      Toggle the display between 'cpu' and 'io' modes.

       n or # Change the number of processes to display (prompt for  new  num-
	      ber).

       s      Change  the  number of seconds to delay between displays (prompt
	      for new number).

       S      Toggle the display of system processes.

       k      Send a signal ("kill" by default) to a list of processes.   This
	      acts similarly to the command kill(1)).

       r      Change  the  priority (the "nice") of a list of processes.  This
	      acts similarly to the command renice(8)).

       u      Display only processes owned by a specific username (prompt  for
	      username).   If  the username specified is simply "+", then pro-
	      cesses belonging to all users will be displayed.

       o      Change the order in which the display is sorted.	 This  command
	      is  not  available on all systems.  The sort key names vary fron
	      system to system but usually  include:   "cpu",  "res",  "size",
	      "time".  The default is cpu.

       e      Display  a  list of system errors (if any) generated by the last
	      kill or renice command.

       i      (or I) Toggle the display of idle processes.

       t      Toggle the display of the top process.

THE DISPLAY

       The actual display varies depending on the  specific  variant  of  Unix
       that  the  machine  is running.	This description may not exactly match
       what is seen by top running on this  particular	machine.   Differences
       are listed at the end of this manual entry.

       The  top  few  lines  of the display show general information about the
       state of the system, including  the  last  process  id  assigned  to  a
       process	(on  most systems), the three load averages, the current time,
       the number of existing processes, the number of processes in each state
       (sleeping,  running,  starting, zombies, and stopped), and a percentage
       of time spent in each of the processor states (user, nice, system,  and
       idle).	It also includes information about physical and virtual memory
       allocation.

       The remainder of the screen displays information about individual  pro-
       cesses.	 This  display	is  similar  in  spirit to ps(1) but it is not
       exactly the same.  PID is the process id, USERNAME is the name  of  the
       process's  owner  (if -u is specified, a UID column will be substituted
       for USERNAME), PRI is the current priority of the process, NICE is  the
       nice  amount  (in  the  range -20 to 20), SIZE is the total size of the
       process (text, data, and stack), RES is the current amount of  resident
       memory (both SIZE and RES are given in kilobytes), STATE is the current

NOTES

       The "ABANDONED" state (known in the kernel as "SWAIT")  was  abandoned,
       thus the name.  A process should never end up in this state.

AUTHOR

       William LeFebvre, EECS Department, Northwestern University

ENVIRONMENT

       TOP  user-configurable defaults for options.

FILES

       /dev/kmem      kernel memory
       /dev/mem       physical memory
       /etc/passwd	   used to map uid numbers to user names
       /boot/kernel/kernel system image

BUGS

       Don't shoot me, but the default for -I has changed once again.  So many
       people were confused by the fact that top wasn't showing them  all  the
       processes  that	I  have decided to make the default behavior show idle
       processes, just like it did in version 2.  But  to  appease  folks  who
       can't  stand  that  behavior, I have added the ability to set "default"
       options in the environment variable  TOP  (see  the  OPTIONS  section).
       Those  who  want  the  behavior	that version 3.0 had need only set the
       environment variable TOP to "-I".

       The command name for swapped processes should be tracked down, but this
       would make the program run slower.

       As  with  ps(1),  things can change while top is collecting information
       for an update.  The picture it gives is only a close  approximation  to
       reality.

SEE ALSO

       kill(1), ps(1), stty(1), mem(4), renice(8)

FreeBSD NOTES

DISPLAY OF THREADS

       The  '-H'  option will toggle the display of kernel visible thread con-
       texts.  At runtime the 'H' key will toggle this mode.  The  default  is
       OFF.

DESCRIPTION OF MEMORY

       Mem:  9220K  Active, 1032K Inact, 3284K Wired, 1MB Cache, 2M Buf, 1320K
       Free Swap:   91M Total, 79M Free, 13% Inuse, 80K In, 104 K Out

       K: Kilobyte

       M:     Megabyte

       %:     1/100

       Active:
	      number of pages active

       Inact: number of pages inactive

       Total: total available swap usage

       Free:  total free swap usage

       Inuse: swap usage

       In:    pages paged in from swap devices (last interval)

       Out:   pages paged out to swap devices (last interval)

4th Berkeley Distribution	     Local				TOP(1)

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