nerdexam
LPI

010-160 · Question #5

What information can be displayed by top?

The correct answer is B. Running processes, ordered by CPU or RAM consumption. The top command is a real-time process viewer that displays running processes sorted by resource usage such as CPU or memory.

The Power of the Command Line

Question

What information can be displayed by top?

Options

  • AExisting files, ordered by their size.
  • BRunning processes, ordered by CPU or RAM consumption.
  • CUser accounts, ordered by the number of logins.
  • DUser groups, ordered by the number of members.
  • EUser accounts, ordered by the number of files.

How the community answered

(27 responses)
  • B
    93% (25)
  • C
    4% (1)
  • D
    4% (1)

Why each option

The `top` command is a real-time process viewer that displays running processes sorted by resource usage such as CPU or memory.

AExisting files, ordered by their size.

Listing files by size is done with commands like `ls -lS` or `du`, not `top`, which is strictly a process monitor.

BRunning processes, ordered by CPU or RAM consumption.Correct

The `top` utility displays a live, updating list of running processes along with their CPU percentage, memory consumption, PID, user, and other metrics. By default it sorts by CPU usage, but pressing 'M' will re-sort by memory (RAM) consumption, making it the primary tool for identifying resource-hungry processes.

CUser accounts, ordered by the number of logins.

User account login history is queried with commands such as `last` or `lastlog`, not `top`.

DUser groups, ordered by the number of members.

Group membership information is found in `/etc/group` or via `getent group`, not `top`.

EUser accounts, ordered by the number of files.

Counting files owned by user accounts requires tools like `find` combined with `du` or custom scripts, not `top`.

Concept tested: Real-time process monitoring with top

Source: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/top.1.html

Topics

#top command#process monitoring#system resources

Community Discussion

No community discussion yet for this question.

Full 010-160 Practice