Viewing Processes that Use Excessive CPU

This task describes how to view the processes that use the most CPU. These processes are often referred to as CPU hogs. BMC PATROL provides two methods to obtain this information.

Before you begin

BMC PATROL allows you to discover these CPU hogs by using a menu command or a parameter.

• The menu command allows you to define "excessive CPU utilization" through a dialog box when you execute the command.
• The parameter compares each processes' CPU utilization against the other processes and lists the processes that consume the most CPU.
• The cputhreshold value has a default value of 80 percent.

To View the Processes that Use Excessive CPU as Defined by You

1. Access the PROCESS application menu as described in Accessing KM Commands and InfoBoxes.
2. Select CPU Hogs.
   BMC PATROL displays the CPU Hogs dialog box.
   
   CPU Hogs Dialog Box
   
3. Select the threshold by moving the slider bar to the right (maximum value of 100) or the left (minimum value of 0) and click Accept.
   BMC PATROL surveys the system for 30 seconds and then writes the information to a BMC PATROL task object, CPU Hogs Process, in the UNIX OS container.
4. Access the CPU Hogs Process task object as described in Accessing KM Commands and InfoBoxes and view the results. Your results should resemble this example:

# PSL Serial No.: #########
<NOT INTERACTIVE>
 
CPU Hogs collecting data for apprx. 30 seconds...
Processes consuming at least 50% of CPU during this interval (30 sec.):
PID	    CPU%    	USER     	CMD
29111	  73      	3Suprv   	audit_script -I i18nInstance -M
CPU Hogs complete
---------------- >>>>> DONE <<<<< ----------------

Output Format

The output has the following format. Following table defines each field.

pid    	cpu%    	user    	cmd line

 CPU Hogs Command Output Format 

To View the Processes that Consume the Most CPU

This parameter displays the 10 processes that consume the most CPU.

1. Access the PROCESS application class so that you can view its parameters.
2. Open the PROCTopProcs parameter.

BMC PATROL displays the information in a text parameter. Your result should resemble this example:

# PSL Serial No.: #########
 %TIME   PID  PPID   TOT SECS   SIZE     UID COMMAND
  0.00     0     0         18      0     root sched
  0.00     1     0          1     96     root /etc/init -
  0.00     2     0          0      0     root pageout
  0.00     3     0        588      0     root fsflush
  0.00   315     1          0    217     root /usr/lib/saf/sac
 
Last update: Thu Jun 14 12:50:27 CCYY
 Sample Period: 30 secs.

Text Parameter Format

The output has the following format. Following table defines each field.

 %time   pid  ppid   tot secs    size      uid command
 

 PROCTopProcs Text Parameter Format 

Related topics

Process (PROCESS)

Process Presence (PROCPRES)

Unix Processes (PROCCONT)