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iotop Command in Linux with Examples

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iotop or Input/Output top is a command in Linux which is used to display and monitor the disk IO usage details and even gets a table of existing IO utilization by the process. It is designed in python and needs kernel modules for its execution. It is used by system administrators to trace the specific process that may be causing a high disk I/O read/writes.
It requires a python interpreter for its execution. It produces output similar to that of top command. It generally requires root privileges for its execution.

Installation

CentOS/RHEL

sudo yum install iotop

ubuntu

sudo apt install iotop

Working with iotop command

1. To get the list of processes and their current disk IO usage.

sudo iotop

iotop-command-in-liunx

This command will now display the list of processes and their current disk usage and will keep on updating the same.

2. To show processes that are actually doing IO

sudo iotop -o

only-current-actual-disk-usage-iotop

This will display all the processes which are currently and actually doing IO.

3. To get the version of the iotop

sudo iotop --version

iotop-version

This will display the currently installed version of iotop tool.

4. To display help section

sudo iotop -h

iotop-help

This command will display the help section of the iotop tool.

5. To display output in non interactive mode

sudo iotop -b

to-display-in-non-interactive-mode

This will display the output in non-interactive and batch mode.

6. To change the number of iterations or updations

sudo iotop -n 3

change-iterations-iotop

This command will not update the output 3 times in spite of the default time which is infinity.

7 To display a specific process

sudo iotop -p 10989

io-usage-with-process-id-iotop

This will display the IO usage of the process with the mentioned PID in spite of all the processes.

8. To show accumulated output

sudo iotop -a

display-accumulated-output

This will not display the accumulated IO instead of bandwidth.

9. To add a time stamp to each line

sudo iotop -t

add-timestamp-iotop

This will add a time stamp to each line of the output.

10. To suppress some lines of header

sudo iotop -q

suppress-lines-of-header-iotop

This will now suppress some line of header in the output.


Last Updated : 26 May, 2020
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