TOP
Version 3.8beta1
William LeFebvre
and a cast of dozens
If you do not want to read this entire file, then at least read
the section at the end entitled "KNOWN PROBLEMS".
If you are having any problems getting top to work, please read the
file "FAQ" *before* contacting me. Thank you.
"top" is a program that will give continual reports about the state of
the system, including a list of the top cpu using processes. Version 3
of "top" has three primary design goals: provide an accurate snapshot of
the system and process state, not be one of the top processes itself, be
as portable as possible.
Version 3 has many bug fixes from version 2.5, and it has also been
reorganized in a major way to make it easy to port to other platforms.
All system dependent code is now contained in one file.
Starting with version 3.6, top includes a "configure" script generated
by Gnu's autoconf. This script MUST be run before attempting to
compile top. It will explore the system and generate approriate
contents for Makefile, config.h, and top.1.
On some systems, top requires read access to the memory files
"/dev/kmem" and "/dev/mem" as well as the system's kernel image. Most
installations have these files protected from general access. These
sites would have to install this program in the same way that programs
such as "ps" are installed. On most systems with a /proc file system,
top will try to read everything it can from /proc, but may need extra
permissions to do so. The configure script will determine the
permissions needed by the top binary, and a "make install" as root
will get the binary installed correctly. Sometimes this requires that
the binary be installed with set-group-id privileges and, in rare
cases, set-user-id to root.
CAVEAT: version 3 of top has internal commands that kill and renice
processes. Although I have taken steps to insure that top makes
appropriate checks with these commands, I cannot guarantee that these
internal commands are totally secure. IF YOU INSTALL top SET-USER-ID
TO ROOT, YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK! I realize that some operating
systems will require top to run setuid root, and I will do everything
I can to make sure that top is a secure setuid program.
System support now takes the form of "modules". Adding support for a
different architecture requires only adding a module. These modules
are contained in the subdirectory "machine". The "configure" script
automatically determines which module is approproate. However, it may
not be able to determine what the correct module is. This can happen
either because it doesn't know about the system or there is no module
to support the system. In the former case, if you know which module
to use, you can force "configure" to choose a particular module with
the option "--with-module". For example, if you want to force the use
of the svr4 module (which appears as "machine/m_svr4.c") then use
"configure --with-module=svr4" to generate the correct Makefile. See
the file "Porting" for a description of how to write your own module.
To compile and install "top", read the file "INSTALL" and follow the
directions and advice contained therein.
If you make any kind of change to "top" that you feel would be
beneficial to others who use this program, or if you find and fix a bug,
please send me the change.
Be sure to read the FAQ enclosed with the distrubution. It contains
answers to the most commonly asked questions about the configuration,
installation, and operation of top.
COLOR
Version 3.6 incorporated the idea of using ANSI color sequences to
enhance information on the screen. By default, no color is used. But
you can configure the use of color through the environment variable
TOPCOLORS (or, for compatibility, TOPCOLOURS). The interface is
identical to the one first implemented by chris@spang.uk.eu.org, but
the implementation is entirely different. The option -C can be used
to diable the feature entirely.
Any information at the top of the screen can be enhanced with color.
However, due to implementation difficulties, the per-process area
cannot be color-enhanced. A complete description of color support can
be found in the man page. References for ANSI color codes can be
found all over the Internet, but if you want a handy reference, look
in color.h.
AVAILABILITY
Note that top is now a sourceforge project! Its project name is
"unixtop" and you can access its project page here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/unixtop
On the project page you can find more information and access the
official bug and feature request trackers. If you find a bug,
want to request a feature, or need help, please submit a request
to the appropriate tracker on sourceforge. Thank you.
Subversion access is also provided by Sourceforge. If Subversion is
installed on your system you can check out the project with the
following command:
svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/unixtop unixtop
There is also a web site dedicated to the project, and it is here:
http://www.unixtop.org
The latest version of "top" is available as a download through
sourceforge. Start here to access the downloadable files:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=72892
KNOWN PROBLEMS:
Gnu CC
Compiling via Gnu CC continued to be the source of most of the
questions I receive. By far the most common mistake made by those
attempting to compile top with Gnu CC is out of date include files.
When the operating system is upgraded, the include files that are part
of the gcc package MUST also be updated. Gcc maintains its own
include files. Even a minor OS upgrade can involve changes to some of
the kernel's internal data structures, which are defined in include
files in "sys". Top is very sensitive to these changes. If you are
compiling with gcc and experience any sort of strange problems, please
make sure the include files you are using are up to date BEFORE
sending me a bug report. Look in the gcc source distribution for the
shell script "fixincludes".
MacOS X
Since I don't have full time root access to a MacOS X system I cannot
provide effective support for the platform. MacOS X uses Mach, and it
is very difficult to extract accurate system and process information
from the system. It takes a lot of trial and error, along with root
access. I have included the most up-to-date version of the macosx module
in the distribution, but I do not claim that it works. If you want to
try to use it, you can configure with "./configure --with-module=macosx".
HP/UX 10.10
In their infinite wisdom, the folks at HP have decided that mere mortals
such as you and I don't need to know what the kernel's proc structure looks
like. To that end, they have removed all useful content from the include
file <sys/proc.h> in version 10.10. As a result, top will not compile
under 10.10. What HP is trying to accomplish with this move is to force
iconoclasts such as myself to use "pstat" for collecting all process
information. I have no immediate solution for this problem, but hope to
obtain a sufficiently complete definition of "struct proc" at some point in
the near future. Stay tuned.
GRATITUDE
My perpetual thanks to all the people who have helped me support top
on so many platforms. Without these people, top would not be what it
is. Here is a partial list of contributors and other individuals.
Robert Boucher, Marc Cohen, David Cutter, Casper Dik,
Charles Hedrick, Andrew Herbert, Jeff Janvrin, Torsten Kasch,
Petri Kutvonen, William L. Jones, Tim Pugh, Steve Scherf,
Phillip Wu
(My apologies if I missed anyone.)
LICENSE
Top is distributed free of charge under the same terms as the BSD
license. For an official statement, please refer to the file "LICENSE"
which should be included with the source distribution.
AUTHOR
If you wish to contact me, please send a message to the sourceforge
username "wnl".
William LeFebvre
U.S. Mail address:
William LeFebvre
11585 Jones Bridge Road
Suite 420 PMB 139
Alpharetta, GA 30202