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Process Level Metrics on Linux

Date 29 June 2026

Author Team Capacitas

Sometimes it’s not enough to measure resource consumption at machine/system level. It’s often necessary to understand which processes are using resources. Linux allows this to be done via the –ps switch on the vmstat command.

However the results may not be what you expect. It is reasonable to assume that one would be delivered CPU and consumption per process per time interval but be careful. In SUSE Linux version 10 the results are the CPU and memory utilisation per process averaged since the process was started. This may or may not (probably not) be useful but is unlikely to be what was intended.

An alternative is to use the top command (and if you want all processes then ensure that there are no restrictions on the number of tasks/processes that are captured). This command will give the resource consumption per process per time interval.
Team Capacitas
About the author

Team Capacitas

Capacitas is a cloud and AI value partner. We translate rapid technological change into enduring commercial advantage by converting every unit of compute into enterprise value.

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