Installation

sudo apt-get install atop

system level area

The top area is for system level metrics. There is

  • PRC process totals
  • CPU
  • CPL CPU load information
  • MEM
  • SWP swap
  • PAG paging frequency
  • LVM / MDD / DSK logical volume/multiple device/disk utilization
  • NET network information

process level area

similar to top.

the output can be controlled:

  • g generic output (default)
  • m for memory
  • d for disk related
  • n for network related
  • v for various process information
  • c for the command line of the process

background running

the daemon is running as a systemd unit:

systemctl status atop

it is restarted daily:

cat /etc/cron.d/atop

it writes historical data to /var/log/atop/ as one file per day

this can be viewed by reading the file:

atop -r /var/log/atop/atop_20150617