How to Monitor System Performance in Fedora

Edited 2 weeks ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

FedoraSystem PerformanceMonitoringUtilitiesCommand LineTerminalSoftwareResource ManagementSystem AdministrationComputers

Monitoring system performance is important to get the best results from your Fedora system. Knowing how your system resources are being used can help troubleshoot problems and optimize performance. In this guide, we will cover various tools and techniques you can use to monitor system performance in Fedora. Fedora is a popular Linux distribution known for its cutting-edge features and community support.

Understanding system performance

Before discussing tools and methods to monitor system performance, it is important to understand what system performance involves. System performance monitoring involves observing computer resources such as CPU, memory, disk space, and network activity in real time. By understanding how these resources are used we can identify potential bottlenecks or issues that need to be addressed.

Using built-in tools

Fedora has many built-in tools that can be used to monitor system performance efficiently. These tools provide powerful information and are easy to use even for beginners.

1. System Monitor

The System Monitor tool in Fedora provides a graphical user interface for monitoring CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage, and process management. To open System Monitor, simply search for "System Monitor" in the menu.

Once opened, you will see several tabs:

• Processes: This tab shows you all the running processes, their CPU and memory usage. You can sort the processes by each column to identify which processes are using the most resources.
• Resources: This tab provides graphical charts displaying real-time CPU, memory, network, and swap usage.
• File Systems: Here, you can view the mounted file systems and their current usage.

2. Top command

top command is a widely used command-line tool that provides real-time insight into system performance. Open the terminal and type top. This command shows a dynamic view of running processes and their CPU and memory usage.

The top part of the terminal output provides a summary of system resources, and below it, there is a list of running processes sorted by CPU usage by default.

3. htop command

htop is an improved version of top command. It is not installed by default, but you can install it by running:

sudo dnf install htop

Once installed, simply type htop to launch it. The interface is more colorful and user-friendly than top and allows you to scroll both vertically and horizontally to see all processes and their full command lines.

Monitoring memory usage

Memory usage is another important factor that affects system performance. Fedora provides several tools for tracking your system's memory usage.

1. Free commands

The free command helps to display the total amount of free and used memory in the system, as well as the amount of swap memory. Simply open a terminal and type:

free -h

-h flag means "human-readable" format, which displays the size in KB, MB, or GB instead of bytes.

2. vmstat command

vmstat provides a snapshot of various system statistics including memory, process, and CPU usage. It is part of the procps package that is present in Fedora by default. Run the following command:

vmstat

This command gives you information about the system's memory, swap, I/O settings, and CPU activities. The most important memory-related fields are:

• swpd: swap used
• FREE: Free memory
• buf: memory used as buffers
• Cache: Memory used as cache

Monitoring disk usage

It's important to understand how disk space is used on Fedora to prevent problems such as running out of disk space, which can lead to system instability.

1. df command

df command displays the amount of disk space available for a file system. To get human-readable output, run:

df -h

It shows each file system's size, used space, available space, and percentage of usage.

2. du command

du command summarizes the disk usage of each file and directory. To check the disk usage of a specific directory, type:

du -sh /path/to/directory

The flag -s means to summarize the total size and -h means in human-readable format.

Monitoring network usage

Monitoring network performance can help diagnose connectivity issues and determine if there are any bottlenecks.

1. iftop command

iftop is a command-line tool used to monitor bandwidth usage on a network interface by a host. Install it using the following:

sudo dnf install iftop

Once installed, run iftop and it will list the current bandwidth usage between your machine and other hosts.

2. nload command

nload provides a simple and interactive command-line view of network traffic in real-time. You can install it using the following command:

sudo dnf install nload

After installation, run nload, and it will display statistics of incoming and outgoing traffic in the terminal.

Long term monitoring and logging

For long-term monitoring and analyzing trends over time, you can use more sophisticated monitoring tools.

1. SAR command

sar is part of the sysstat package and helps collect, report, and save system activity information. To install sysstat, run:

sudo dnf install sysstat

Enable data collection by editing the /etc/default/sysstat file and setting ENABLED="true". Start the service:

sudo systemctl start sysstat

To view the daily report, use sar command:

sar -u 1 3

Parameters indicate CPU usage monitoring, refresh every second for 3 iterations.

2. GNOME Logs

Log files are an important aspect of system monitoring. Fedora provides a GNOME Logs application for viewing logs for the system, applications, security, and more. Search for “GNOME Logs” in the menu to find and open it.

Conclusion

Monitoring system performance is an essential task for maintaining a healthy and efficient Fedora system. Using the tools mentioned in this guide, you can effectively track and manage CPU, memory, disk, and network resources. Whether you are a system administrator or a casual user, these tools can help you keep your system running smoothly.

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