Disk top usage PIDs

Adam McDougall mcdouga9 at egr.msu.edu
Tue Nov 4 09:03:47 PST 2008


Eduardo Meyer wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have some serious issue. Sometimes something happens and my disk
> usage performance find its limit quickly. I follow with gstat and
> iostat -xw1, and everything usually happens just fine, with %b around
> 20 and 0 to 1 pending i/o request. Suddely I get 30, 40 pending
> requests and %b is always on 100% (or more than this).
>
> fstat and lsof gives me no hint, because the type of programs as well
> as the amount of 'em is just the same.
>
> How can I find the PID which is hammering my disk? Is there an "iotop"
> or "disktop" tool or something alike?
>
> Its a mail server. I have pop3, imap, I also have maildrop and
> sometimes, httpd, working around the busiest mount point.
>
> I have also started AUDIT, however all I can get are the top PIDs
> which issue read/write requests. Not the requests which take longer to
> perform (the busiest ones), or should I look for some special audit
> class or event other than open, read and write?
>
> Thank you in advance.
>
>   
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