1 TOP 2 Version 3.8beta1 3 4 William LeFebvre 5 and a cast of dozens 6 7 8 If you do not want to read this entire file, then at least read 9 the section at the end entitled "KNOWN PROBLEMS". 10 11 If you are having any problems getting top to work, please read the 12 file "FAQ" *before* contacting me. Thank you. 13 14 "top" is a program that will give continual reports about the state of 15 the system, including a list of the top cpu using processes. Version 3 16 of "top" has three primary design goals: provide an accurate snapshot of 17 the system and process state, not be one of the top processes itself, be 18 as portable as possible. 19 20 Version 3 has many bug fixes from version 2.5, and it has also been 21 reorganized in a major way to make it easy to port to other platforms. 22 All system dependent code is now contained in one file. 23 24 Starting with version 3.6, top includes a "configure" script generated 25 by Gnu's autoconf. This script MUST be run before attempting to 26 compile top. It will explore the system and generate approriate 27 contents for Makefile, config.h, and top.1. 28 29 On some systems, top requires read access to the memory files 30 "/dev/kmem" and "/dev/mem" as well as the system's kernel image. Most 31 installations have these files protected from general access. These 32 sites would have to install this program in the same way that programs 33 such as "ps" are installed. On most systems with a /proc file system, 34 top will try to read everything it can from /proc, but may need extra 35 permissions to do so. The configure script will determine the 36 permissions needed by the top binary, and a "make install" as root 37 will get the binary installed correctly. Sometimes this requires that 38 the binary be installed with set-group-id privileges and, in rare 39 cases, set-user-id to root. 40 41 CAVEAT: version 3 of top has internal commands that kill and renice 42 processes. Although I have taken steps to insure that top makes 43 appropriate checks with these commands, I cannot guarantee that these 44 internal commands are totally secure. IF YOU INSTALL top SET-USER-ID 45 TO ROOT, YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK! I realize that some operating 46 systems will require top to run setuid root, and I will do everything 47 I can to make sure that top is a secure setuid program. 48 49 System support now takes the form of "modules". Adding support for a 50 different architecture requires only adding a module. These modules 51 are contained in the subdirectory "machine". The "configure" script 52 automatically determines which module is approproate. However, it may 53 not be able to determine what the correct module is. This can happen 54 either because it doesn't know about the system or there is no module 55 to support the system. In the former case, if you know which module 56 to use, you can force "configure" to choose a particular module with 57 the option "--with-module". For example, if you want to force the use 58 of the svr4 module (which appears as "machine/m_svr4.c") then use 59 "configure --with-module=svr4" to generate the correct Makefile. See 60 the file "Porting" for a description of how to write your own module. 61 62 To compile and install "top", read the file "INSTALL" and follow the 63 directions and advice contained therein. 64 65 If you make any kind of change to "top" that you feel would be 66 beneficial to others who use this program, or if you find and fix a bug, 67 please send me the change. 68 69 Be sure to read the FAQ enclosed with the distrubution. It contains 70 answers to the most commonly asked questions about the configuration, 71 installation, and operation of top. 72 73 COLOR 74 75 Version 3.6 incorporated the idea of using ANSI color sequences to 76 enhance information on the screen. By default, no color is used. But 77 you can configure the use of color through the environment variable 78 TOPCOLORS (or, for compatibility, TOPCOLOURS). The interface is 79 identical to the one first implemented by chris (a] spang.uk.eu.org, but 80 the implementation is entirely different. The option -C can be used 81 to diable the feature entirely. 82 83 Any information at the top of the screen can be enhanced with color. 84 However, due to implementation difficulties, the per-process area 85 cannot be color-enhanced. A complete description of color support can 86 be found in the man page. References for ANSI color codes can be 87 found all over the Internet, but if you want a handy reference, look 88 in color.h. 89 90 91 AVAILABILITY 92 93 Note that top is now a sourceforge project! Its project name is 94 "unixtop" and you can access its project page here: 95 96 http://sourceforge.net/projects/unixtop 97 98 On the project page you can find more information and access the 99 official bug and feature request trackers. If you find a bug, 100 want to request a feature, or need help, please submit a request 101 to the appropriate tracker on sourceforge. Thank you. 102 103 Subversion access is also provided by Sourceforge. If Subversion is 104 installed on your system you can check out the project with the 105 following command: 106 107 svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/unixtop unixtop 108 109 There is also a web site dedicated to the project, and it is here: 110 111 http://www.unixtop.org 112 113 The latest version of "top" is available as a download through 114 sourceforge. Start here to access the downloadable files: 115 116 http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=72892 117 118 119 KNOWN PROBLEMS: 120 121 Gnu CC 122 123 Compiling via Gnu CC continued to be the source of most of the 124 questions I receive. By far the most common mistake made by those 125 attempting to compile top with Gnu CC is out of date include files. 126 When the operating system is upgraded, the include files that are part 127 of the gcc package MUST also be updated. Gcc maintains its own 128 include files. Even a minor OS upgrade can involve changes to some of 129 the kernel's internal data structures, which are defined in include 130 files in "sys". Top is very sensitive to these changes. If you are 131 compiling with gcc and experience any sort of strange problems, please 132 make sure the include files you are using are up to date BEFORE 133 sending me a bug report. Look in the gcc source distribution for the 134 shell script "fixincludes". 135 136 MacOS X 137 138 Since I don't have full time root access to a MacOS X system I cannot 139 provide effective support for the platform. MacOS X uses Mach, and it 140 is very difficult to extract accurate system and process information 141 from the system. It takes a lot of trial and error, along with root 142 access. I have included the most up-to-date version of the macosx module 143 in the distribution, but I do not claim that it works. If you want to 144 try to use it, you can configure with "./configure --with-module=macosx". 145 146 HP/UX 10.10 147 148 In their infinite wisdom, the folks at HP have decided that mere mortals 149 such as you and I don't need to know what the kernel's proc structure looks 150 like. To that end, they have removed all useful content from the include 151 file <sys/proc.h> in version 10.10. As a result, top will not compile 152 under 10.10. What HP is trying to accomplish with this move is to force 153 iconoclasts such as myself to use "pstat" for collecting all process 154 information. I have no immediate solution for this problem, but hope to 155 obtain a sufficiently complete definition of "struct proc" at some point in 156 the near future. Stay tuned. 157 158 159 GRATITUDE 160 161 My perpetual thanks to all the people who have helped me support top 162 on so many platforms. Without these people, top would not be what it 163 is. Here is a partial list of contributors and other individuals. 164 165 Robert Boucher, Marc Cohen, David Cutter, Casper Dik, 166 Charles Hedrick, Andrew Herbert, Jeff Janvrin, Torsten Kasch, 167 Petri Kutvonen, William L. Jones, Tim Pugh, Steve Scherf, 168 Phillip Wu 169 170 (My apologies if I missed anyone.) 171 172 173 LICENSE 174 175 Top is distributed free of charge under the same terms as the BSD 176 license. For an official statement, please refer to the file "LICENSE" 177 which should be included with the source distribution. 178 179 180 AUTHOR 181 182 If you wish to contact me, please send a message to the sourceforge 183 username "wnl". 184 185 William LeFebvre 186 187 U.S. Mail address: 188 William LeFebvre 189 11585 Jones Bridge Road 190 Suite 420 PMB 139 191 Alpharetta, GA 30202 192
Indexes created Thu Apr 09 00:23:28 UTC 2026