iotop for Linux
It's also possible on Linux to get per process I/O statistics, so you can see exactly who is reading and writing heavily, using a program named iotop. This data isn't available in mainstream Linux until kernel 2.6.20, and the iotop program requires Python 2.5, too. RedHat RHEL 5 doesn't meet either requirement. RedHat has been working on getting the I/O statistics back ported to their mainstream 2.6.18 kernel and working through the Python issues too. By RHEL 5.7, it may be fully available; refer to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=557062 to track their progress.
If you're running on a system with a more recent kernel, as may be the case for Debian or Ubuntu users, make sure to try iotop out once you've seen heavy ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access