{"id":191,"date":"2026-05-31T23:13:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T06:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hostandtech.com\/kb\/linux\/how-to-monitor-linux-server-resources\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T23:13:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T06:13:29","slug":"how-to-monitor-linux-server-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hostandtech.com\/kb\/linux\/how-to-monitor-linux-server-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Monitor Linux Server Resources Using top, htop, and Other Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Overview<\/h2>\n<p>Linux monitoring doesn&#8217;t require third-party dashboards or paid software. Every Linux server ships with built-in tools that show you exactly what&#8217;s happening with CPU, memory, disk I\/O, and running processes in real time. Knowing how to read these tools is a core skill whether you&#8217;re on a shared VPS or a bare-metal dedicated server.<\/p>\n<p>Most performance complaints \u2014 slow WordPress sites, unresponsive apps, failed cron jobs \u2014 trace back to resource exhaustion. CPU is pegged at 100%, memory is full and the server is swapping, or disk I\/O is saturated. These tools tell you which one it is within seconds.<\/p>\n<p>This article covers the most useful Linux monitoring commands for day-to-day server management: <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code>, <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">htop<\/code>, <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">vmstat<\/code>, <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">iostat<\/code>, and <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">df<\/code>. You don&#8217;t need all of them \u2014 but you should know what each one is for.<\/p>\n<h2>Prerequisites<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>SSH access to your Linux server (root or sudo user)<\/li>\n<li>A terminal client \u2014 Terminal on macOS\/Linux, PuTTY or Windows Terminal on Windows<\/li>\n<li>Basic comfort with the command line (you don&#8217;t need to be an expert)<\/li>\n<li><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">htop<\/code> is not installed by default on all distros \u2014 you may need to install it (covered below)<\/li>\n<li>This guide applies to Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 11+, CentOS 7+, AlmaLinux 8\/9, and Rocky Linux 8\/9<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step-by-Step Instructions<\/h2>\n<h3>Step 1: Check Real-Time CPU and Memory with <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code><\/h3>\n<p><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code> is installed on every Linux server by default. It gives you a live view of running processes sorted by CPU usage.<\/p>\n<p>Connect via SSH and run:<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-1\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>The output refreshes every 3 seconds. Here&#8217;s what to look at first:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>%Cpu(s)<\/strong> row \u2014 <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">us<\/code> is user-space CPU (your apps), <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">sy<\/code> is kernel CPU, <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">wa<\/code> is I\/O wait. If <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">wa<\/code> is above 10-15%, your disk is the bottleneck, not your CPU.<\/li>\n<li><strong>MiB Mem<\/strong> row \u2014 shows total, free, used, and buff\/cache memory. Don&#8217;t panic if &#8220;free&#8221; is near zero \u2014 Linux aggressively uses free RAM for cache, which is normal and healthy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>MiB Swap<\/strong> row \u2014 if <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">used<\/code> swap is climbing, your server is out of real RAM. That&#8217;s the actual problem.<\/li>\n<li>The process list \u2014 sorted by CPU by default. Press <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">M<\/code> to sort by memory instead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Press <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">q<\/code> to exit.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcdd <strong>Note:<\/strong> The &#8220;free memory&#8221; figure in <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code> is misleading to beginners. Linux uses spare RAM for disk cache, so a server with 512 MB &#8220;free&#8221; out of 8 GB is not necessarily in trouble. Watch the <strong>Swap used<\/strong> figure instead \u2014 that&#8217;s the real warning sign.<\/p>\n<h3>Step 2: Install and Use <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">htop<\/code> for a Better View<\/h3>\n<p><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">htop<\/code> is an improved, colour-coded version of <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code>. It&#8217;s easier to read and lets you scroll, search, and kill processes interactively. I&#8217;d recommend it as your default monitoring tool for anything that isn&#8217;t a minimal container or embedded system.<\/p>\n<p>Install it based on your distro:<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-2\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\"># Ubuntu \/ Debian\napt install htop -y\n\n# AlmaLinux \/ Rocky Linux \/ CentOS\ndnf install htop -y<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>Then run it:<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-3\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">htop<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>Key things to know in htop:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The coloured CPU bars at the top break down usage visually. Green is user processes, red is kernel, blue is low-priority tasks.<\/li>\n<li>Press <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">F6<\/code> to change sort order \u2014 sort by MEM% when you&#8217;re debugging a memory leak.<\/li>\n<li>Press <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">F4<\/code> to filter processes by name \u2014 useful when you want to find all <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">php-fpm<\/code> or <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">mysql<\/code> processes specifically.<\/li>\n<li>Press <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">F9<\/code> to send a signal to a process (kill it). Use signal 15 first (graceful), then 9 only if it doesn&#8217;t respond.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u26a0 <strong>Warning:<\/strong> Killing processes with signal 9 (<code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">SIGKILL<\/code>) is a hard kill \u2014 the process gets no chance to clean up. For databases like MySQL or MariaDB, always try signal 15 first, or use <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">systemctl stop mysql<\/code>. A hard kill can leave InnoDB in an inconsistent state.<\/p>\n<h3>Step 3: Check Memory and Swap Usage with <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">free<\/code><\/h3>\n<p>For a quick one-line memory snapshot without the process list:<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-4\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">free -h<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>The <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">-h<\/code> flag outputs human-readable values (GB\/MB instead of kilobytes). The <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">available<\/code> column is the most useful \u2014 it estimates how much memory is actually free for new processes, accounting for reclaimable cache.<\/p>\n<h3>Step 4: Diagnose Disk I\/O with <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">iostat<\/code><\/h3>\n<p><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">iostat<\/code> is part of the <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">sysstat<\/code> package. If your server is slow and CPU isn&#8217;t the culprit, check disk I\/O next.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-5\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\"># Install sysstat if needed\napt install sysstat -y       # Debian\/Ubuntu\ndnf install sysstat -y       # AlmaLinux\/Rocky\n\n# Run iostat with 2-second refresh, extended stats\niostat -xz 2<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>Focus on the <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">%util<\/code> column. If it&#8217;s consistently above 80% for a device (e.g. <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">sda<\/code> or <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">nvme0n1<\/code>), that disk is saturated. On our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hostandtech.com\/vps-ssd-servers\">VPS SSD Hosting<\/a> plans, NVMe storage handles I\/O far better than spinning disks, which matters a lot on database-heavy workloads.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcdd <strong>Note:<\/strong> <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">await<\/code> is the average time (in milliseconds) that I\/O requests wait. Under 5ms is good. Over 20ms on an SSD is a red flag \u2014 could indicate filesystem issues, high queue depth, or a failing drive.<\/p>\n<h3>Step 5: Check Disk Space with <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">df<\/code><\/h3>\n<p>Running out of disk space kills servers silently. Logs stop writing, databases crash, mail queues back up. Check it regularly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-6\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">df -h<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>Look at the <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">Use%<\/code> column. Anything above 85% needs attention. Above 95% is an emergency \u2014 some filesystems stop accepting writes before 100% because they reserve space for root.<\/p>\n<p>To find what&#8217;s eating your disk space, <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">du<\/code> is your friend:<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-7\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\"># Find the top 10 largest directories under \/var\ndu -h \/var --max-depth=2 | sort -rh | head -10<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>In my experience, <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">\/var\/log<\/code> and <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">\/var\/lib\/mysql<\/code> are the most common culprits on a busy hosting server.<\/p>\n<h3>Step 6: Check System Load with <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">vmstat<\/code><\/h3>\n<p><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">vmstat<\/code> gives a compact view of CPU, memory, swap, I\/O, and system activity in one line. It&#8217;s useful for spotting trends over time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-8\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\"># Sample every 2 seconds, 10 times\nvmstat 2 10<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>The columns to watch:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>r<\/strong> \u2014 processes waiting to run. If this is consistently higher than your CPU core count, you have a CPU bottleneck.<\/li>\n<li><strong>si \/ so<\/strong> \u2014 swap in \/ swap out. Any non-zero value here means you&#8217;re swapping, which is slow.<\/li>\n<li><strong>wa<\/strong> \u2014 CPU time spent waiting on I\/O. Same as in <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Common Issues and Troubleshooting<\/h2>\n<h3>htop shows &#8220;command not found&#8221; after installation<\/h3>\n<p>On some minimal server images (common on cloud VPS builds), the PATH doesn&#8217;t include <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">\/usr\/bin<\/code> correctly for non-root users. Try running <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">sudo htop<\/code> or check the install with <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">which htop<\/code>. If it installed to <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">\/usr\/bin\/htop<\/code> but still errors, your shell session may need refreshing \u2014 log out and back in.<\/p>\n<h3>CPU usage looks high but no single process is responsible<\/h3>\n<p>This usually means many small processes are each using a small amount. Sort by CPU in <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">htop<\/code> and watch for patterns \u2014 dozens of <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">php-fpm<\/code> workers or Apache <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">httpd<\/code> children each at 2-3% can add up to 80%+ total. This is a configuration issue, not a hardware issue. Review your PHP-FPM pool settings or Apache <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">MaxRequestWorkers<\/code>.<\/p>\n<h3>Server has free RAM but is still slow<\/h3>\n<p>Check swap first (<code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">free -h<\/code>). If swap used is non-zero, the server was at some point out of RAM and started swapping. Even after RAM frees up, swap doesn&#8217;t automatically get cleared, so performance stays degraded. You can check this with <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">vmstat 1 5<\/code> and watch the <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">si<\/code>\/<code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">so<\/code> columns. Restarting the heaviest services (e.g. MySQL) often clears swap without a full reboot.<\/p>\n<h3><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">df -h<\/code> shows plenty of space but writes are failing<\/h3>\n<p>Check inode usage \u2014 it&#8217;s a separate limit from block space and it&#8217;s easy to hit on servers with large numbers of small files (email servers, cache directories).<\/p>\n<div class=\"ht-code-snippet\"><button class=\"ht-code-snippet__copy\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Copy code\"><\/button><span class=\"ht-code-snippet__feedback\">Copied to clipboard<\/span><\/p>\n<pre class=\"ht-code-snippet__code\" id=\"code-block-9\"><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">df -i<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<p>If <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">IUse%<\/code> is at 100% on any filesystem, you&#8217;re out of inodes. You&#8217;ll need to delete files (especially small ones in tmp or cache directories) to recover. This doesn&#8217;t show up in regular <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">df -h<\/code> output, which trips up a lot of people.<\/p>\n<h3>Load average is high but CPU% in top looks normal<\/h3>\n<p>Load average counts both running and waiting (blocked on I\/O) processes. A high load average with low CPU suggests an I\/O bottleneck, not a compute one. Run <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">iostat -xz 2<\/code> and check <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">%util<\/code> and <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">await<\/code>. This is an annoyingly common mismatch that confuses people who only watch the CPU graph.<\/p>\n<h2>FAQ<\/h2>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-section\">\n<h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-item\">\n<h3 class=\"ht-faq-question\">What&#039;s the difference between top and htop on Linux?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-answer\">\n<p>Both show real-time process and resource information, but htop is far easier to use. It has a colour-coded interface, lets you scroll through processes, filter by name, and kill processes interactively without knowing the PID. top ships on every Linux system by default; htop usually needs to be installed. For routine monitoring, htop is better \u2014 but top is useful when you&#8217;re on a minimal system where htop isn&#8217;t available.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-item\">\n<h3 class=\"ht-faq-question\">How do I check CPU usage on a Linux server from the command line?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-answer\">\n<p>Run <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">top<\/code> or <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">htop<\/code> and look at the CPU summary line at the top. The <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">us<\/code> value shows user-space CPU usage (your applications), and <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">wa<\/code> shows I\/O wait time. For a single snapshot without an interactive interface, you can run <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">vmstat 1 3<\/code> to get three one-second samples.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-item\">\n<h3 class=\"ht-faq-question\">How much free memory should my Linux server have?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-answer\">\n<p>Don&#8217;t focus on the &#8220;free&#8221; column \u2014 Linux uses spare RAM as disk cache, so low free memory is normal. What matters is the &#8220;available&#8221; column in <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">free -h<\/code>, and whether your swap is being used. If swap used is growing, you need more RAM or you need to reduce memory usage from applications like MySQL or PHP-FPM.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-item\">\n<h3 class=\"ht-faq-question\">How do I find what&#039;s using all my disk space on Linux?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-answer\">\n<p>Run <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">df -h<\/code> to find which filesystem is full, then use <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">du -h \/var --max-depth=2 | sort -rh | head -10<\/code> to drill down into the largest directories. On hosting servers, the usual suspects are MySQL binary logs in <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">\/var\/lib\/mysql<\/code>, old log files in <code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">\/var\/log<\/code>, and backup files left in home directories.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-item\">\n<h3 class=\"ht-faq-question\">Can I monitor my Linux server without SSH access?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"ht-faq-answer\">\n<p>If you&#8217;re on a managed plan or have a control panel like cPanel or Plesk, both include basic server resource graphs under their monitoring sections. For Host &amp; Tech VPS customers, the client area also includes graphs for CPU, RAM, and bandwidth. That said, SSH gives you far more detail and is worth setting up if you&#8217;re managing anything beyond a basic shared hosting account.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not sure why your server is slow? Monitoring CPU, memory, and disk usage is the first step to diagnosing any performance issue. Here&#8217;s how to do it with the tools already on your Linux server.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[449,451,445,444,450,447,446,448],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","tag-cpu-usage-linux","tag-how-to-monitor-linux-server-resources-using-top-htop-and-other-tools","tag-htop","tag-linux-monitoring","tag-memory-monitoring","tag-server-performance","tag-top-command","tag-vps-management"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to Monitor Linux Server Resources Using top, htop, and Other Tools<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to monitor Linux server resources using top, htop, vmstat, and df. 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