Understanding top

Understanding top

By default "top" displays the most cpu intensive task.
Update list in every five seconds

PID: process identification
USER: Name of the user who owns (and perhaps started) the process.
PRI: priority of the process.
NI: niceness level
SIZE: Amount of memory (code+data+stack)
RSS: Amount of physical RAM used, in kilobytes.
SHARE: Amount of memory shared with other processes, in kilobytes
STAT: state of process.
[S: sleeping, R: running, D: waiting (Mostly for IO), T: stopped(suspended), Z: Zombi(defunt)

%CPU: share of the cpu usage.
%MEM: share of physical memory.
Time: total cpu time used by the process.
command: command line used to start the task (including parameters)

Keys:

sort by: [A:age, N:pid, P:cpu usage, M:resident memory usage, T: time]
u: show only a specific user,
k: kill a task (with any signal)
r: renice a task
s: set the delay in seconds between update