Using Procman

Procman has two main uses. The first is to monitor and modify the processes that are running. The second is to monitor demands on the processor (CPU), how much memory is consumed, and how much space is available on each device. This section describes basic usage of Procman.

Process Listing

Starting Procman opens the Process Listing window, shown in Figure 1>. The window shows the names of the processes that are running under the Process Name column on the left side of the window. In some cases processes are shown in outline form. Child processes are connected to their parents by a dotted line and indented. Clicking the mouse on the plus (+) sign next to a process name expands the listing to show the child processes beneath it. Clicking on a minus (-) sign next to the process name collapses the list of child processes.

Figure 1. Process Listing window

By default, Process Listing shows the application icons associated with each process in the far left column. The default table shows a column for the process name and four columns that provide additional information. The User column shows which user owns the process. The Memory column shows how much total system memory that process is using. The %CPU column shows how great a percentage of the processor's capacity the process is using. The ID column indicates the process identifier (pid), a number that uniquely identifies the process and can be used to manipulate the process on the command line. The user can use a contextual menu to add columns that show VM Size, Resident Memory, Shared Memory, RSS Memory, Nice, or Status as described below in the section called Changing Column Headers with the Contextual Menu>.

The Search Window

The search window allows the user to search for a process by name. Wildcards are not supported. Once the process is found, it is highlighted, and the user can perform operations on it using either contextual menus or the menu bar.

The View Menu

Clicking on the View menu (shown in Figure 2>) with the mouse reveals three options: View All Processes, View My Processes, and View Running Processes.

Figure 2. View Menu

Clicking on View All Processes shows all processes on the system for all users. View My Processes shows only those processes that belong to the current user. View Running Processes shows only the processes that are running at that moment.

Changing Column Headers with the Contextual Menu

As noted above, column headers appear across the top of the Process Listing. By default, application icons appear in the far left column, followed by Process Name, User, Memory, %CPU, and ID.

Clicking on the column header will reverse the order in which information is displayed from top to bottom. The user can also move the column to the left or right by dragging the column header with the mouse.

Figure 3. Contextual Menu

Right clicking on a column header shows a contextual menu shown above in Figure 3>, which provides the following choices:

  • Sort Ascending — This sorts the column in ascending numerical and then alphabetical order.

  • Sort Descending — This sorts the column in descending alphabetical and then numerical order.

  • Unsort — This undoes previous sort commands.

  • Remove This Column — This removes the column from the display.

  • Add a Column — This brings up a dialog box (shown in Figure 4>) that allows the user to drag a column back onto the table with the mouse. The user is able to choose where the column should be located.

    Figure 4. Add a Column

    • VM Size: This column shows the amount of virtual memory allocated to a process.

    • Resident Memory: This column shows the amount of physical memory allocated to a process.

    • Shared Memory: This column shows the amount of shared memory allocated to a process. Shared memory is memory that can be accessed by another process.

    • RSS Memory: This column shows the total amount of physical memory used, not counting pages swapped out.

    • Nice: A higher nice value indicates that a process has a lower priority, and will wait for higher priority processes. A lower nice value indicates that a process has a higher priority and will execute before lower priority processes.

    • Status: This column shows whether a process is running or sleeping.

  • Best Fit — This menu choice refreshes the table and realigns the data so that it is optimally displayed.

  • Customise Current View — This menu choice allows the user to sort the data in the columns multiple times using multiple filters. In order to create filters, the user should select the Customise Current View menu choice and a Sort button will appear with a description of the current criteria for sorting to the right of the button as shown in Figure 5>.

    Figure 5. Sort Button

    Click on the Sort button to bring up a dialog box which allows the user to create or modify four filters as shown in Figure 6>.

    Figure 6.

    Left click on the pop up menu at the top of the dialog box (as shown in Figure 7>) to select the first criterion for sorting, and click the radio button to indicate whether the sort should take place in ascending or descending order. Up to three additional criteria can be entered to refine the order in which the user wishes to sort the data as shown in Figure 7>.

    Figure 7. Sort Button

Processes and Contextual Menus

  • Change Priority —This menu choice brings up a dialog box (shown in Figure 8>) with a sliding bar that allows the user to change the priority of a process. Sliding the bar to the right gives the process a higher "Nice value" and a lower priority. A process with a lower priority will run after processes with a higher priority, and giving a process a lower priority (higher Nice value) can keep it from interfering with higher priority processes. Sliding the bar to the left gives the process a lower Nice value and a higher priority. Giving a process a higher priority (lower Nice value) helps ensure that it will run before processes of a lower priority. Generally, child processes inherit their priority from parent processes, but Change Priority allows the user to set priorities manually. In order to set the Nice value lower than zero (and give the process a higher priority) the user needs to enter the root password, unless the user is already logged in as root.

    Figure 8. Change Priority

  • Memory Maps — This menu choice brings up a dialog box containing the table shown in Figure 9> which displays memory maps of of the highlighted process.

    Figure 9. Memory Maps

    The table contains the following columns:

    • VM Start

    • VM End

    • Flags

    • VM Offset

    • Device

    • Inode

    Left clicking on the column header will reverse the order in which information is displayed from top to bottom.

    Right clicking on a column header shows a contextual menu with the following choices: Sort Ascending, Sort Descending, Unsort, Remove ThisColumn, Add a Column, Best Fit, and Customise Current View. For further explanation of this contextual menu see the section called Changing Column Headers with the Contextual Menu>.

  • Hide Process — This menu choice hides the process so that it is no longer displayed under Process Listing. (Child processes are still displayed in the main process branch.) To display a process that has been hidden, click on the Menu Bar on the Settings and click on Hidden Processes. This will display a dialogue box with a list of the processes that have been hidden. To display the hidden process in the Process Listing table, highlight the hidden process with the mouse and click on the button Remove From List.

  • End Process — This menu choice ends the process. This is the preferred method of stopping a process.

  • Kill Process — This menu choice kills the process. Normally Kill Process is necessary only if End Process does not work.

Other Buttons

The More Info button is located in the lower right corner of the Process Listing window. Clicking on the More Info button with the mouse reveals more information about whichever process is highlighted in the Process Listing windows as shown in Figure 10>.

Figure 10. More Info

More Info shows the command used to start the highlighted process. It shows whether the Status of the process is sleeping or running. It shows the Priority of the process (with the Nice number used to set the Priority in parentheses.) More Info also shows the total memory used by the process, the RSS (or physical) memory used by the process, and the amount of memory that is Shared. To hide this information, click on the Less Info button in the lower left corner. The user can also toggle More Info/Less Info with the Ctrl-i key combination.

End Process is located in the lower left corner of the Process Listing window. The user can stop a process by highlighting the process on the Process Listing table with the mouse, and clicking on the End Process.

Menu Bar

Most of the menu choices in the menu bar apply to the Process Listing window. If the System Monitor window is on top, menu choices that apply only to the Process Listing will be greyed out. The menu bar contains the following choices:

File

This menu contains:

  • Exit (Ctrl-Q) — This exits the program.

Edit

This menu contains:

  • Change Priority (Ctrl-R) — Highlight a process in the Process Listing table and select this menu choice to bring up the dialog box in Figure 8 in the section called Processes and Contextual Menus> to change the Priority or "Nice value" of a process. You must be a superuser to do this.

  • Hide Process (Ctrl-H) — Highlight a process in the Process Listing table and select this menu choice to hide a process. Select Settings: Hidden Processes to show hidden processes.

  • End Process (Ctrl-E) — Highlight a process in the Process Listing table and select this menu choice to end the process. You must be the owner of the process or the superuser to do this.

  • Kill Process (Ctrl-K) — Highlight a process in the Process Listing table and select this menu choice to kill the process. You must be the owner of the process or the superuser to do this. If possible, it is normally preferable to end a process rather than kill it.

View

This menu contains:

Settings

This menu contains:

  • Hidden Process (Ctrl-P) — This displays any hidden processes and allows the user to display them in the Process Listing table.

  • Preferences — This shows the preferences dialog for Process Listing and System Monitor.

    Process Listing

    • The Process Listing menu choice allows the user to set the interval in seconds at which the Process Listing will update. In addition, the user can use the mouse to choose whether to display Process Dependencies, Application Names, and Threads. Left click the Close or hit Enter to exit preferences.

    • Left click System Monitor tab to see the System Monitor preferences. Under Graphs, the user can set the interval at which the graphs update in seconds. Left clicking on the boxes to the right of Background Color or Grid Color brings up a dialog similar to that in Figure 12 in the section called System Monitor>. The user can then adjust the color of the background or the grid lines in the % CPU Usage History and % Memory/Swap Usage History graphs, which are described in the section called System Monitor>.

    • The System Monitor also allows the user to change the interval in seconds at which the Device table updates.

System Monitor

The second window in Procman is the System Monitor shown in Figure 11>. To see the Sytem Monitor, click with the mouse on the System Monitor tab to the right of the Process Listing tab.

Figure 11. More Info

As shown in Figure 11> above, the System Monitor has three panels:

% CPU Usage History — This panel shows a graph of the percentage of processor (CPU) capacity used over time.

% Memory/Swap Use — This panel shows a graph of the percentage of memory and swap space used over time. Users can change the colors of the lines used in the graphs by clicking on the colored buttons in the lower left corner of the %CPU Usage History or % Memory/Swap Use graphs as shown in Figure 12> below.

Figure 12. Color Panel

At the bottom of the System Monitor panel is a table showing the amount of used disk space and total disk space by device name and directory as shown in Figure 11> above. Dragging the edges of this table with the left mouse button will resize it, and dragging the separators between the column headers will change the width of the columns.