Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

How to do it...

The iotop application can either perform continuous monitoring or generate reports for a fixed period:

1. For continuous monitoring, use the command as follows:

        # iotop -o

 The -o option tells iotop to show only those processes that are doing active I/O while it is running, which reduces the noise in the output.

2. The -n option tells iotop to run for N times and exit:

        # iotop -b -n 2

3. The -p option monitors a specific process:

       # iotop -p PID

 PID is the process you wish to monitor.

In most modern distributions, instead of finding the PID and supplying it to iotop, you can use the pidof command and write the preceding command as follows: # iotop -p `pidof cp`