Viewing Process Lists

PrimeAlert Reporter keeps a history of processes running on the Solaris agent host. By default, information about each process currently running is stored to disk every 5 minutes. These process lists are saved, with decreasing frequency, for up to five years. You can use the Process List View to examine these lists.

Note: The Process Lists functionality is not supported on Windows.

Launching The Process List View

There are two locations within Reporter where you can launch the Process List View. First, on the Host Bar, there is a button named Processes (Figure 20) which will launch the Process List View.

Figure 20 - Launching The Process List View From WebPortal

Alternatively, you can launch the viewer from within any data view. To do this, select a date and time from the list labeled Process List At: near the bottom of the data view window (Figure 21), and then click on the Go button to the right. This will also launch a Process List View, with a list for the selected time (or the one closest to it) pre-loaded.

Figure 21 - Launching The Process List View From a Data View

Either of these methods will launch the Process List Viewer shown in Figure 22. At the top of the window there is a line containing information about the agent host, including hostname, IP address, and operating system version. Below this are controls which let you alter the column used for sorting the process list, and the number of processes to display. Below the horizontal dividing line is the date and time that this process list was generated, and just above the list itself is a message x of y processes shown which tells you how many processes are currently displayed, and how many processes Reporter has stored in its database.

Figure 22 - The Process List View

The Print button at the bottom of the window will cause your browser to print the window. The Close button closes the Process List View, and the Help button displays this help file. Above these buttons there may be a message stating that no process list was available at the requested time, and that it is displaying the next available one.

Figure 23 - Buttons

The large text area in the center of the window contains the process list. By default, the list is sorted according to % CPU. The process table contains ten columns, explained below in Table 1.

UID The user ID which owns this process, translated to the more readable username.
PID Process ID
PPID Process ID of this process' parent.
%CPU Percent of the CPU currently being used by this process.
%MEM Percentage of the system memory being used by this process.
VSZ Total amount of virtual memory used by this process (in KB).
RSS Resident set size of this process (in KB).
START TIME Time and date this process was started.
TIME Total amount of CPU time used by this process.
CMD First 200 characters of the command line which created this process.
Table 1 - Process List Fields

Changing The Sorting Method

You can change the sort criterion using the picklist with that label, and clicking the Go button. You can also change the number of processes displayed by entering the desired number and clicking the Go button.

Figure 24 - Sort Criterion

Browsing Process Lists At Different Times

To view a process list at a time before or after the time of the currently displayed list, click on the left or right arrows below the time (see Figure 25). There are arrows for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, 1 day, and 1 week. Clicking on the desired arrow will cause that process list (or the closest one that is at least that old/recent) to be displayed.

Figure 25 - Time Controls