Monitoring and Tuning CPU Use

This chapter deals with techniques for detecting runaway or CPU-intensive programs and minimizing their adverse effect on performance.

Readers who are not familiar with CPU scheduling may want to look at Performance Overview of the CPU Scheduler before continuing.

The following sections cover the different aspects of CPU tuning:

• Monitoring CPU Use
• Using the time Command to Measure CPU Use
• Identifying CPU-Intensive Programs
• Using the tprof Program to Analyze Programs for CPU Use
• Using the pprof Command to Measure CPU usage of Kernel Threads
• Detecting Instruction Emulation with the emstat Tool
• Detecting Alignment Exceptions with the alstat Tool
• Restructuring Executable Programs with the fdpr Program
• Controlling Contention for the CPU
• CPU-Efficient User ID Administration (The mkpasswd Command)