How to Track System Resource Usage Over a Specific Time Period Using atop

This article explains how to track system resource usage over a specific time period using atop.

Let us follow the steps:

1. Installation & setup-
   1. Access Plesk server through SSH.
   2. Install the atop set-
      1. For distributions based on CentOS/RHEL-
         # yum install atop
      2. For distributions based on Debian/Ubuntu-
         # apt-get install atop
   3. Adjust the monitoring interval to 60 seconds (default is 600 seconds)-
      1. For distributions based on CentOS/RHEL-
         # sed -i ‘s/600/60/’ /etc/sysconfig/atop
      2. For distributions based on Debian/Ubuntu-
         # sed -i ‘s/600/60/’ /etc/default/atop
   4. Initiate the atop service-
      # service atop restart
      Note- For Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions, atop automatically generates a cron task, ensuring automatic logging initiation at midnight if it’s not already running.
2. Usage-
   1. Display the generated atop log files-
      # ls -l /var/log/atop/
   2. To inspect the gathered data, execute-
      # atop -r /var/log/atop/atop_*****
      where atop_***** is a file name from step 1.
   3. Utilise hotkeys to switch between intervals-
      1. t – move forward
      2. Shift + t – move backwards
      3. r – reset all counters
3. To disable atop, run-
   # service atop stop
   For Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions, delete the atop cron task-
   # rm -f /etc/cron.d/atop

That is it! Hope you liked our article.