Speeding up ps and top
Channel: Southern California Linux Expo
Date: 2016-02-08

Streamed live on Jan 23, 2016

Talk by Andrei Vagin

This talk is about a new interface to get information about processes, called task_diag, which we developed.

Currently /proc file system is used to get information about the processes running on the system. All information are presented as text files, which is convenient for humans, but not for programs such as ps and top. This incurs significant delays, especially on a systems with lots of containers running, which is frequently the case nowdays.

Ideally, tools such top and ps would get information in binary format, and use flexible means to specify which kinds of information and for which tasks is required. Presented is a new interface with all these features, called task_diag.

More info at: http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/14x/presentations/speeding-ps-and-top