check which process cause high cpu utilization in last 24 hours

Question

Is there any possible command or way to check which process caused high cpu utilization in last 24 hours , because last night at 11:30 pm date:-30-nov-2022 we got alert that cpu utilization was high , so need to figure out which process cause high utilization.

Answer 1

sar

You can use sar. It’s included as part of sysstat. To install:

sudo apt-get install sysstat

Next, enable it by editing /etc/default/sysstat and setting “ENABLED” to true.

Doing so monitors your system and generates a report every 10 minutes, rotating them out after a week. You can modify this behavior by editing the sysstat crontab at /etc/cron.d/sysstat, or by changing rotation settings in the sysstat settings at /etc/sysstat/sysstat.

You can generate a real-time report with the following command:

sar -u 1 3

sysstat will collect background CPU usage data every minute, saving it to /var/log/sysstat/. You can then import this data for analysis, using either a spreadsheet program or a custom tool like sargraph.

atop

An alternative is to use atop which is able to store raw counters in a file for long-term analysis on system level and process level. By default, the daily logfiles are preserved for 28 days. System activity reports can be generated from a logfile by using the atopsar command.

atop is available in the ubuntu repositories by: sudo apt install atop

Answer 2

Top command

Top in batch mode

top -b -n 1

Then fish it out with Sed

top -b -n 1 | sed -n 8,8p

Answer 3

Directly access log file

/var/log/syslog

Simmer it down with grep

cat /var/log/syslog | grep Nov | grep 30 | grep  11: | grep pid=

Answer 4

Process command

Process Status (ps)

ps

    ps -eo lstart,pid,time,user,comm,pcpu  |\
    grep 2022 |\
    grep Nov |\
    grep pm |\
    grep 11 |\
    sort -n -k 10 -r |\
    head --lines 1

Explaination

ps (Process Status)
-e (all processes)
-o (format the output)
lstart (long start)
pid (process identification)
time (time)
user (the user)
comm (command)
pcpu (cpu usage percent)

Output piped into another program, grep.

grep 2022 | grep Nov | grep pm | grep 11

Then sorted, by number and the column containing the CPU percentage

 
sort -n -k 10 -r
-n (number)
-k (column)
-r (reverse)

Then piped in to head to allow the first line through only

head --lines 1