When managing Linux servers, especially on
Redhat based systems as RHEL, Rocky Linux or any distribution of Linux realtime
monitoring tools like top and htop are handy. They provide a glance of your
system health as CPU usage, memory consumption, process details and more.
In this post, we'll walk you through requirements, installation and usage of both top and htop on Linux systems.
Requirements
• A
Linux based system (RHEL, Alma Linux, and Rocky Linux or any Linux
distribution)
• Access
to terminal (CLI)
• Sudo
privileges
Installation:
Mostly
top is pre-installed on all Linux distributions. You can run it directly by
typing top on bash.
#top
If
htop is not pre-installed on any Linux distribution, you can easily install it.
As is the case htop is not installed on RHEL 9. Now follow the following steps
to install htop in RHEL 9.
Step 1 enable EPEL repository if already not enabled
Here epel repository is
enabled by this command on RHEL 9.
Now install epel-release with
command sudo dnf install epel-release.
#sudo dnf install epel-release
Step 2 install htop
# sudo dnf install htop
That’s it. Now htop is ready to use.
Usage
To start monitoring issue top command on bash.
# top
You’ll see realtime statistics. Here's what each section mean:
· Load average: System load over 1, 5 and 15 minutes
· Up Time: shows the up time of system
· Total Task: show the total task
· Seeping Task: show any sleeping process
· Zombie Task: show any zombie process
· Stopped Task: show any of stopped process
· Running Task: number of running Task
· Tasks: Number of running, sleeping and stopped processes
· %CPU: CPU usage per process
· %MEM: Memory usage per process
· Swap Memory: usage of swap memory
Common commands within top:
You
can run command during top running interface to control the things in real time
like the following commands.
q:
Quit
k: Kill
a process (you'll be prompted for PID)
r:
Renice a process (change priority)
h:
Help
Using htop
To start monitoring with htop issue htop command on bash.
# htop
You'll get a colorful,
interactive dashboard.
Features:
• Scroll with arrow keys
• Use F3 for search and F4 for filter
• F9 kills process and F6 changes sort column
Comparison
between top and htop
top
· By default installed almost in all distributions
· Provides basic system information and list processes sorted by CPU or memory usage
· Offers less command-line options for filtering and sorting
· Comparatively simple to use for basic monitoring
htop
· Installation is required before to use
· Includes colored output, supports mouse input and easy process management
· Interactive interface with visually more appealing
· Offers robust customized options sorting and display
· Require more deeper learning curve due to its advance features
Key Differences
|
Feature |
top |
htop |
|
Default
installation |
Yes |
No |
|
User
interface |
Basic
text-based |
Enhanced,
interactive, color-coded |
|
Mouse
support |
No |
Yes |
|
Process
management |
Limited |
More
intuitive, including killing/renicing |
|
Customization |
Basic |
Extensive |
|
Learning
curve |
Low |
Moderate |
Final Thoughts:
Both top and htop is essential tools in a Linux admin's toolbox. While top is always available and reliable, htop brings user-friendly enhancements that makes system monitoring much more interactive. You are diagnosing system performance issues or monitoring your system load, mastering these tools will give you a deep understanding of what is happening under the hood.
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