Red Hat Knowledgebase

The top command monitors CPU utilization, process statistics, and memory utilization. By default, the command runs continously until you stop it. The display is divided into two sections.

The top section contains information related to overall system status - uptime, load average, process counts, CPU status, and utilization statistics for both memory and swap space.

The lower section displays process-level statistics, the exact nature of which can be controlled while top is running. For example, top displays processes only, even if a process is multi-threaded. To display individual threads, press [H]; a second press returns to the default display mode.


Type q to exit the display.