Linux Process Viewer with Thread Support

When optimizing Turnkey ZurmoCRM within VirtualBox, I want to know how it handle session by thread and physical multi-core processor. I am also interested how hyper-threading works, too. Therefore, I need a replacement for top and the buil-in monitor in QTS.

I choose htop.

Installation

In QTS, you need to install Optware IPKG first. Then launch and search for htop for package installation. Or login to QTS and use following command to install directly:

[~] # /opt/bin/ipkg install htop

In TurnKey Linux, you need to login and use apt-get to install as below:

root@zurmo ~# apt-get install htop

Running Examples

htop running on Atom D2701-based QNAP NAS with four logical threads.

This is htop running on QNAP TS-269L which has an Intel Atom D2701.  Atom D2701 has hardware dual-core with hyper-threading. In other words, it is 4 logical threats to htop. That’s why you see 4 cores on upper left corner.

The process list is similar to top but with more fine tune features which may be enabled by F2. Because it supports mouse, you may also use a mouse to click on each item. It solves my problem by no F10 in GNOME Terminal.

You may also change process priority by first select the process than use F7 and F8 to change the priority. Much easier than using Linux top and nice commands.

Final Thoughts

I really like this nice utility which helps me to dig into the utilization of  multi-core processor and learn more about Apache Multi-Processing Modules (MPMs) . Well, that’s another long story.

My friend Facebook: Francisco Alcantara suggest me to take a look at Follow-up on “Linux server monitoring tools” – Hacker News suggestions in a list by Arvik. He shares more monitor tools in Linux and Web. It’s worth reading!

Reference

1. Test your ZurmoCRM with VirtualBox
2. Wiki: Session (computer science)
3. Wiki: Thread (computing)
4. Wiki: Multi-core processor
5. Wiki: Hyper-threading
6. LinuxCareer.com: Learning Linux Commands: top
7. QNAP: QTS
8. htop – an interactive process viewer for Linux
9. QNAP: Install Optware IPKG
10. TurnKey Linux
11. QNAP TS-269L File Transfer Performance Report
12. Intel Atom Processor D2700
13. Wiki: nice (Unix)
14. Apache: Multi-Processing Modules (MPMs)
15. Facebook: Francisco Alcantara
16. Aarvik: Follow-up on “Linux server monitoring tools” – Hacker News suggestions in a list