DOKK / manpages / debian 11 / atop / atoprc.5.en
ATOPRC(5) File Formats Manual ATOPRC(5)

atoprc - atop/atopsar related rcfile

This manual page documents the rcfile of the atop and atopsar commands. These commands can be used to monitor the system and process load on a Linux system.

The atoprc file contains the default settings. These settings are read during startup, first from the system-wide rcfile /etc/atoprc and after that from the user-specific rcfile ~/.atoprc (so system-wide settings can be overruled by an individual user). The options in both rcfiles are identical.

The rcfile contains keyword-value pairs, one on every line (blank lines and lines starting with a #-sign are ignored).
The following keywords can be specified:

A list of default flags for atop can be defined here. The flags which are allowed are 'g', 'm', 'd', 'n', 'u', 'p', 's', 'c', 'v', 'C', 'M', 'D', 'N', 'A', 'a', 'y', 'Y', 'f', 'F', 'G', 'R', '1', 'e', 'E' and 'x'.
The default interval value in seconds.
The length of a screen line when sending output to a file or pipe (default 80).
The default regular expression for the users for which active processes will be shown.
The default regular expression for the process names to be shown.
The maximum number of active CPUs that will be shown.
The maximum number of active GPUs that will be shown.
The maximum number of active logical volumes that will be shown.
The maximum number of active multiple devices that will be shown.
The maximum number of active disks that will be shown.
The maximum number of NFS mounts that will be shown on an NFS client.
The maximum number of active network interfaces that will be shown.
The maximum number of active containers that will be shown.
The busy percentage considered critical for a processor (see section COLORS in the man-page of the atop command). This percentage is used to determine a weighted percentage for line coloring and sorting of active processes. When this value is zero, no line coloring or automatic sorting is performed for this resource.
The busy percentage considered critical for a disk (see section COLORS in the man-page of the atop command). This percentage is used to determine a weighted percentage for line coloring and sorting of active processes. When this value is zero, no line coloring or automatic sorting is performed for this resource.
The busy percentage considered critical for a network interface (see section COLORS in the man-page of the atop command). This percentage is used to determine a weighted percentage for line coloring and sorting of active processes. When this value is zero, no line coloring or automatic sorting is performed for this resource.
The percentage considered critical for memory utilization (see section COLORS in the man-page of the atop command). This percentage is used to determine a weighted percentage for line coloring and sorting of active processes. When this value is zero, no line coloring or automatic sorting is performed for this resource.
The occupation percentage considered critical for swap space (see section COLORS in the man-page of the atop command). This percentage is used to determine a weighted percentage for line coloring and sorting of active processes. When this value is zero, no line coloring or automatic sorting is performed for this resource.
The number of pages swapped out per second considered critical for for memory utilization (see section COLORS in the man-page of the atop command). This threshold is used in combination with 'memcritperc' to determine a weighted percentage for line coloring and sorting of active processes. When this value is zero, no line coloring or automatic sorting is performed for this resource.
A percentage of the critical percentage to determine if the resource is almost critical (see section COLORS in the man-page of the atop command). When this value is zero, no line coloring for `almost critical' is performed.
Definition of color name for information messages (default: green).
Allowed colors are: red green yellow blue magenta cyan black white.
Definition of color name for thread-specific lines when using the 'y' option (default: yellow).
Allowed colors are: red green yellow blue magenta cyan black white.
Definition of color name for almost critical resources (default: cyan).
Allowed colors are: red green yellow blue magenta cyan black white.
Definition of color name for critical resources (default: red).
Allowed colors are: red green yellow blue magenta cyan black white.
A list of default flags for atopsar can be defined here. The flags that are allowed are 'S', 'x', 'C', 'M', 'H', 'a', 'A' and the flags to select one or more specific reports.
Defines whether or not the CPU cycle counter should be retrieved by atop via the 'perf' counters. The values 'auto' (default), 'enable' or 'disable' can be specified. In case of 'auto', the CPU cycle counter will not be retrieved on virtual machines due to the overhead of reading this counter in a guest.
The name of the topdirectory used by the atopacctd daemon. In this directory, the daemon creates a subdirectory pacct_shadow.d in which files will be written containing the process accounting records. The default topdirectory is /run and this option only has to be specified when the atopacctd daemon is started with an alternative topdirectory as command line argument.
This option can only be specified in the /etc/atoprc file (on system level)!

An example of the /etc/atoprc or ~/.atoprc file:

 

flags         Aaf
interval      5
username
procname
maxlinecpu    4
maxlinedisk   10
maxlineintf   5
cpucritperc   80
almostcrit    90
atopsarflags  CMH
ownprocline   PID:50 VGROW:40 RGROW:45 COMMAND-LINE:50
ownpagline    PAGSCAN:3 BLANKBOX:0 PAGSWIN:3 PAGSWOUT:7

The keywords 'ownprocline' and 'ownpagline' are explained in the subsequent section.

Via the rcfile it is possible to define the layout of the output lines yourself, i.e. you can define the layout of one line with process information with the keyword 'ownprocline' (to be selected with the key 'o' or the flag -o) and you can redefine all lines with system information.

The layout of an output-line can be defined as follows (notice that this should be specified as one line in the rcfile):

   keyword   <columnid>:<prio> [<columnid>:<prio> ...]

The columnid is the symbolic name of a column that should shown at this position in the output line.
The prio is a positive integer value that determines which columns have precedence whenever not all specified columns fit into the current screen-width. The higher value, the higher priority.
The column-specifications should be separated by a space. The order in which columns have been specified is the order in which they will be shown, with respect to their priority (columns that do not fit, will be dropped dynamically).

A special columnid for system lines is 'BLANKBOX'. This indicates that an empty column is required at this position. Also this special columnid is followed by a priority (usually low).

The following definition can be specified for process information:

The columnids are the names of the columns that are shown in the normal output of the process-related lines that are shown by atop such as 'PID', 'CMD', 'S', .... The only exception is the special columnid 'SORTITEM' that is used to show one of the columns CPU%/DSK%/MEM%/NET%, depending on the chosen sort-criterium.
An example of a user-defined process line:
 
ownprocline   PID:20 PPID:10 SYSCPU:15 USRCPU:15 VGROW:14 VSIZE:12 RGROW:14 RSIZE:12 ST:8 EXC:7 S:11 SORTITEM:18 CMD:20

The following definitions are used internally by atop as the default system lines (you can redefine each of them in the rcfile as one line):

Redefinition of line labeled with 'PRC':
 
ownsysprcline   PRCSYS:8 PRCUSER:8 BLANKBOX:0 PRCNPROC:7 PRCNZOMBIE:5 PRCCLONES:4 BLANKBOX:0 PRCNNEXIT:6
Redefinition of line labeled with 'CPU' for total CPU-utilization:
 
ownallcpuline   CPUSYS:8 CPUUSER:7 CPUIRQ:4 BLANKBOX:0 CPUIDLE:5 CPUWAIT:6 BLANKBOX:0 CPUSTEAL:1 CPUGUEST:3
Redefinition of line labeled with 'CPU' for utilization of one CPU:
 
ownonecpuline   CPUISYS:8 CPUIUSER:7 CPUIIRQ:4 BLANKBOX:0 CPUIIDLE:5 CPUIWAIT:6 BLANKBOX:0 CPUISTEAL:1 CPUIGUEST:3
Redefinition of line labeled with 'CPL':
 
owncplline   CPLAVG1:4 CPLAVG5:3 CPLAVG15:2 BLANKBOX:0 CPLCSW:6 CPLINTR:5 BLANKBOX:0 CPLNUMCPU:1
Redefinition of line labeled with 'MEM':
 
ownmemline   MEMTOT:2 MEMFREE:5 MEMCACHE:3 MEMDIRTY:1 MEMBUFFER:3 MEMSLAB:3 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0
Redefinition of line labeled with 'SWP':
 
ownswpline   SWPTOT:3 SWPFREE:4 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 SWPCOMMITTED:5 SWPCOMMITLIM:6
Redefinition of line labeled with 'PAG':
 
ownpagline   PAGSCAN:3 PAGSTALL:1 BLANKBOX:0 PAGSWIN:4 PAGSWOUT:3
Redefinition of lines labeled with 'LVM', 'MDD' and 'DSK':
 
owndskline   DSKNAME:8 DSKBUSY:7 DSKNREAD:6 DSKNWRITE:6 DSKKBPERRD:4 DSKKBPERWR:4 DSKMBPERSECRD:5 DSKMBPERSECWR:5 DSKAVQUEUE:1 DSKAVIO:5
Redefinition of line labeled with 'NET' for transport:
 
ownnettrline   NETTRANSPORT:9 NETTCPI:8 NETTCPO:8 NETUDPI:8 NETUDPO:8 NETTCPACTOPEN:6 NETTCPPASVOPEN:5 NETTCPRETRANS:4 NETTCPINERR:3 NETTCPORESET:20 NETUDPNOPORT:1 NETUDPINERR:3
Redefinition of line labeled with 'NET' for network:
 
ownnetnetline   NETNETWORK:5 NETIPI:4 NETIPO:4 NETIPFRW:4 NETIPDELIV:4 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 BLANKBOX:0 NETICMPIN:1 NETICMPOUT:1
Redefinition of line labeled with 'NET' for interfaces:
 
ownnetifline   NETNAME:8 NETPCKI:7 NETPCKO:7 NETSPEEDIN:6 NETSPEEDOUT:6 NETCOLLIS:3 NETMULTICASTIN:2 NETRCVERR:5 NETSNDERR:5 NETRCVDROP:4 NETSNDDROP:4

The lines above are shown in the order as shown by atop in combination with the -f flag (in a very wide window you should be able to see all of the columns).

atop(1), atopsar(1), atopacctd(8), netatop(4), netatopd(8), logrotate(8)
https://www.atoptool.nl

Gerlof Langeveld (gerlof.langeveld@atoptool.nl)
JC van Winkel

December 2020 Linux