If you want more details, I highly recommend our article on using top command.The result will give you something like this:Īs you can see, the 'top' program gives you live access to both CPU and Memory resources on your server, as well as what programs are using what amount of resources. That's handy, right? Top command is very powerful bit unfortunately, many people do not know how to use it properly and effectively. Now the top command output will be sorted on your selected field. Press Esc or Q to quit the interactive mode. You can see the current sort field in the top right corner. When you are at the desired parameter, press S to sort on it. Step 3: Use the arrow key to choose a different parameter like %MEM, TIME, VIRT etc. Step 2: Press Shift+F to enter the interactive mode. However, if you want to sort top command on some other field like virtual memory, time spent, shared memory etc, you can use the interactive mode of the top command. The Shift+M keyboard shortcut is handy for checking memory usage per process. Sort the top command on memory, virtual memory or any other parameter The next time you run the top command, it will be sorted on CPU usage again. It will instantly start showing processes with most memory usage.īut this is not a permanent change. Step 2: Press Shift+M to sort the top command output by memory. Sort top command to show memory usage by processes This means that you see the processes that consume the most CPU is on the top of the command.īut what if you want to see the processes that consume the most of the RAM? You can sort top command based on memory usage instead of CPU consumption.

It refreshes the stats every three seconds and gives you the feeling of continuously monitoring the processes.īy default, the output of the top command is sorted on the CPU consumption. This simple command gives an overview of the all running system process. As a Linux user, you cannot avoid the top command.

Ubuntu check resource usage