LaoHandDeveloper Cheatsheet

top Cheatsheet - Process Monitoring

All essential top commands organized by use case, with 52+ entries you can copy and run directly. Find the right command fast when you need it.

SysOps·52 commands·Last updated 2026-07-21
tophtop监控linux
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top Basics 6

top
Launch top monitoring
top -d 5
Set refresh interval to 5 seconds
top -p 1234
Monitor a single PID
top -u username
Monitor a user's processes only
top -n 10
Exit after 10 refreshes
top -b -n 1 > top.log
Batch mode, write to a file

top Interactive 8

h / ?
Show help
q
Quit
Space
Immediate refresh
k
Kill a process (enter PID)
r
Renice a process (enter PID)
n
Set number of refreshes
s
Set refresh interval
W
Save config to ~/.toprc

top Sort & Display 10

M
Sort by memory
P
Sort by CPU
T
Sort by time
N
Sort by PID
c
Toggle full command path
H
Toggle threads
i
Toggle idle processes
1
Show per-core CPU usage
f
Select displayed fields
o
Sort field

htop Basics 5

htop
Launch htop (needs install)
htop -d 5
Set refresh interval to 5 seconds
htop -u username
Monitor a user only
htop --no-color
No color output
htop --tree
Tree view

htop Interactive 17

F1 / h / ?
Show help
F2 / S
Setup
F3 / /
Search
F4 / \
Filter
F5 / t
Tree view
F6 / >
Sort field
F7 / [
Lower priority
F8 / ]
Raise priority
F9 / k
Kill process
F10 / q
Quit
Space
Tag a process
U
Untag all
c
Show full command path
H
Show/hide user processes
K
Show/hide kernel threads
p
Show/hide full path
t
Show/hide time column

Load Average 6

1 min / 5 min / 15 min
System average load (1/5/15 min)
> CPU cores
System overloaded
tasks: total / running / sleeping / stopped / zombie
Process statistics
%Cpu(s): us / sy / ni / id / wa / hi / si / st
CPU usage breakdown
MiB Mem: total / free / used / buff/cache
Memory usage
MiB Swap: total / free / used
Swap usage

Tips

  • top ships with the system; htop needs install but is friendlier and more powerful.
  • Load average above the core count means overload — investigate high-load processes.
  • High wa (IO wait) means disk bottleneck; high hi/si (interrupts) means network/hardware issues.

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Official References

Commands are compiled from the official docs below. Click to verify the latest usage.

Maintained by LaoHand

Publicly updated on Jul 21, 2026, continuously proofread against official docs.

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