sudo systemctl start netatop
sudo systemctl enable netatop

atop -s

Analyze Memory Usage (m key)

sudo pacman -S atop

Installing atop from Source (Optional)

sudo dnf install atop

On Debian/Ubuntu

To view a specific time window from today’s log, say starting at 5:05 AM:

  • See all running and completed processes.
  • Monitor CPU, memory, disk, and network usage per process.
  • Log all activity in binary files for later analysis.
  • Detect zombie and orphan processes.
  • Display thread-level resource usage.
  • Monitor per-user and per-program activity.
  • Show pressure stalls (PSI) for CPU/memory/disk in modern kernels.
  • Support for cgroup v2, perfect for containerized environments.
  • Optional integration with Netatop for per-process network stats.

atop is a full-screen system and process monitor for Linux, which is designed to report system-wide and per-process activity, including:
And what makes atop stand out: it can log all this activity to disk at regular intervals (default is every 10 minutes). You can then replay any part of the system history and dig into what happened.

Installing Atop Monitoring Tool on Linux

atop -r -b 05:05 -l 1

These logs can be used for various purposes such as system analysis, performance tuning, identifying bottlenecks, debugging issues, or tracing the cause of an unexpected overload.
Once atop is installed, we need to enable its background logging service, so it can start collecting performance data automatically on boot.
I hope you find my article useful and helps you narrow down or prevent issues with your Linux system. In case you have any questions or would like to receive clarification for the usage of atop, please post a comment in the comment section below.
atop is a full-screen performance monitoring tool that provides detailed reports about all system processes, including those that have already terminated. It does this by continuously logging system activity at regular intervals, storing that information for later use.
atop -d

View Detailed Process Info (v key)

atop -v

Show Process Commands (c key)

atop

atop -u

Monitor Network Usage (n key)

sudo apt-get install atop

On Arch Linux / Manjaro

sudo dnf install epel-release

While in the atop interface, press ? to view a full list of commands and shortcuts, which is useful when you want to discover less obvious options or tailor the display to your preferences.

View Scheduling Information (s key)

The RDDSK and WRDSK columns show the amount of data being read and written (in KB/s), while DSK and LVM columns help identify which volumes or disks are most active.
Additionally, VGROW and RGROW display how much virtual and resident memory a process has gained or lost during the current interval. The MEM column shows the overall percentage of memory used by each process.
To get insight into how the kernel is scheduling processes, press the s key, which will display how much CPU time each is consuming and how long they’ve been in a “running” state.
/var/log/atop/atop_YYYYMMDD

atop -c

Group Processes by Program (p key)

atop -n

Accessing Historical Logs

atop is available in most Linux distribution repositories, you can either install it using your system’s package manager or compile it from source for the latest version.
# RedHat-based:
sudo yum install kernel-devel zlib-devel

# Debian-based:
sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

This is a huge win when you need to debug random crashes, track down resource abuse, or monitor usage over time, especially for headless servers or production systems.
By default, atop logs system activity every 600 seconds (i.e., 10 minutes), which might be sufficient for general monitoring, it’s often too infrequent for effective troubleshooting, especially when you’re chasing down short-lived spikes in resource usage or debugging performance bottlenecks.
sudo sed -i ‘s/600/60/’ /etc/atop/atop.daily [Under RedHat based systems]
sudo sed -i ‘s/600/60/’ /etc/default/atop [Under Debian based systems]

wget http://www.atoptool.nl/download/netatop-0.3.tar.gz
tar -xvf netatop-0.3.tar.gz
cd netatop-0.3
make
sudo make install

atop -m

Monitor Disk Utilization (d key)

Unlike traditional tools like top or htop, which only show live system data, atop gives you the ability to look back in time and inspect exactly what was happening during any logged interval, which makes it especially valuable for system administrators for keeping servers running smoothly.
In this article, we will cover what atop offers, how to install it on popular Linux distributions, and how to use it effectively to monitor and analyze your system’s performance history.
First you will need to enable epel repository under RHEL-based distributins, in order to install atop monitoring tool.
Use the spacebar to move forward through intervals and T to go back. Z jumps to the latest entry.

  • -r tells Atop to read from a log file.
  • -b specifies the beginning time.
  • -l 1 limits output to just one interval snapshot.

atop -p

Group Processes by User (u key)

wget https://www.atoptool.nl/download/atop-2.12.0.tar.gz
tar -xzf atop-2.12.0.tar.gz
cd atop-2.12.0
make
sudo make install

sudo systemctl enable –now atop
sudo systemctl enable –now atop-rotate.timer

Getting Started with atop in Linux

Once you’ve installed atop and enabled its logging service, launch it in your terminal:

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