Unix command to find CPU Utilization

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Task:Watching system activity evolve i.e. reports CPU Utilization

# sar -u 12 5

Where,

• -u 12 5: Comparison of CPU utilization; 12 seconds apart; 5 times.

Output includes:

1. %usr: User time (% of CPU)
2. %sys: System time (% of CPU)
3. %wio: Percent of CPU running idle with a process waiting for block I/O
4. %idle: Percent of CPU that is idle

Task: You can watch CPU activity evolve for 10 minutes and save data

# sar -o file-name 60 10

Task: You can just sar and logout and let the report store in files

# nohup sar -A -o output-file 60 10 1>/dev/null 2>&1 &
Note to display data stored in output-file pass -f option to sar command:
# sar -f output-file

UNIX mpstat example

Type the following command to display per-processor statistics; 12 seconds apart; 5 times
# mpstat 12 5

You can also use traditional ps and top command:
# top
# ps -e -o pcpu -o pid -o user -o args

Read man pages of ps, top, mpstat and sar for more information.