Linux: Resource Monitoring

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From the course by Google

Operating Systems and You: Becoming a Power User

3663 ratings

Google

Operating Systems and You: Becoming a Power User

3663 ratings

Course 3 of 5 in the Specialization Google IT Support Professional Certificate

In this course -- through a combination of video lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on practice -- you’ll learn about the main components of an operating system and how to perform critical tasks like managing software and users, and configuring hardware. We’ll wrap up with an example of how you might see this content show up in an interview setting. By the end of this course you’ll be able to: ● navigate the Windows and Linux filesystems using a graphical user interface and command line interpreter. ● set up users, groups, and permissions for account access. ● install, configure, and remove software on the Windows and Linux operating systems. ● configure disk partitions and filesystems. ● understand how system processes work and how to manage them. ● work with system logs and remote connection tools. ● utilize operating system knowledge to troubleshoot common issues in an IT Support Specialist role.

From the lesson

Process Management

In the fifth week of this course, we'll explore process management. As an IT Support Specialist, it is important to use system tools to read and understand process statuses of machines. We will cover ways to start and terminate a process in Windows and Linux. We will also apply troubleshooting tools to solve problems with processes and resources. By the end of this module, you will use Windows and Linux commands to do practical process maintenance.

Windows: Resource Monitoring4:23

Linux: Resource Monitoring3:40

Meet the Instructors

Google

A useful command to find out what your system utilization looks like in real time

is the top command.

Top shows us the top processes that are using the most resources on our machine.

We also get a quick snapshot of total tasks running or idle,

CPU usage, memory usage, and more.

One of the most common places to check when using the top command are these fields here,

percentage CPU and percentage mem.

This shows what CPU and memory usage a

single task is taking up.To get out of the top command,

just hit the Q key, Quit.

A common situation you might encounter is when

a user's computer is running a little slow.

It could be for lots of reasons,

but one of the most common ones is the overuse of hardware resources.

If you find that a top shows you a certain task is taking up a lot of memory or CPU,

you should investigate what the process is doing.

You might even terminate the process so that it gives back the resources it was using.

Another useful tool for resource utilization is the uptime command.

This command shows information about the current time,

how long your system's been running,

how many users are logged on,

and what the load average of your machine is.

From here, we can see the current time is 16:43 or 4:43,

our system has been up for five hours and eight minutes,

and we have one user logged in.

The path that we want to talk about here is the system load average.

This shows the average CPU load in 1,

5, and 15 minute intervals.

Load averages are an interesting metric to read.

They become super useful when you need to see how

your machine is doing over a certain period of time.

We will get into load averages here but you

should read about them in the next supplemental reading.

Another command that you can use to help manage processes is the lsof command.

Let's say you have a USB drive connected to your machine,

you're working with some of the files on the machine,

then when you go to eject the USB drive,

you get an error saying,

device or resource busy.

You've already checked that none of the files on the USB driver is in

use or opened anywhere, or so you think.

Using the lsof command,

you don't have to wonder.

It lists open files and what processes are using them.

This command is great for tracking down

those pesky processes that are holding open files.

One last thing to call out about

hardware utilization is that you can monitor it separately from processes.

If you just wanted to see how your CPU or memory is doing,

you could use various commands to check their output.

This isn't immediately useful to see on a single machine,

but maybe in the future,

if you manage a fleet of machines,

you might want to think about monitoring

the hardware utilization for all of your machines at once.

We won't discuss how to do this,

but you can read more about it in the supplemental reading.

You've done some really great work in this module.

You learned a lot about how to read process information and manage processes,

something that will be vital for you'd know when troubleshooting issues as an I.T.

support specialists.

The next assessments will test you on that new process management knowledge.

Then, drum roll please,

we'll be on to the last and final lesson of this course.

Will cover some of the essential tools that are used in the role of an I.T.

support specialist.

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