The process table of the procmon tool

Edit online

The process table is the main component of the procmon tool. The process table displays the various processes that are running on the system, ordered and filtered according to the user configuration.

The default value of the number of processes listed in the process table is 20, but you can change this value from the Table Properties panel from the main menu.

The yellow arrow key in the column header indicates the sort key for the process table. The arrow points either up or down, depending on whether the sort order is ascending or descending, respectively. You can change the sort key by clicking on any of the column headers.

You can customize the process table, modify the information on the various processes, and run commands on the displayed processes. By default, the procmon tool displays the following columns:
PID Process identifier
CPUPER Percentage of CPU used per process since the last refresh
PRM Percent real memory usage
ELOGIN Effective login of the process user
COMMAND Short name of the process launched
WPAR WPAR of the process
You can choose to display other metrics, like the following:
Item Descriptor
PPID Parent process identifier
NICE Nice value for the process
PRI Priority of the process
DRSS Data resident set size
TRSS Text resident set size
STARTTIME Time when the command started
EUID Effective user identifier
RUID Real user identifier
EGID Effective group identifier
RGID Real group identifier
THCOUNT Number of threads used
CLASSID Identifier of the class which pertains to the WLM process
CLASSNAME Name of the class which pertains to the WLM process
TOTDISKIO Disk I/O for that process
NVCSW N voluntary context switches
NIVCSW N involuntary context switches
MINFLT Minor page faults
MAJFLT Major page faults
INBLK Input blocks
OUBLK Output blocks
MSGSEND Messages sent
MSGRECV Messages received
EGROUP Effective group name
RGROUP Real group name

You can use either the table properties or preference to display the metrics you are interested in. If you choose to change the table properties, the new configuration values are set for the current session only. If you change the preferences, the new configuration values are set for the next session of the procmon tool.

There are two types of values listed in the process table:
  • Real values
  • Delta values

Real values are retrieved from the kernel and displayed in the process table. An example of a real value is the PID, PPID, or TTY.

Delta values are values that are computed from the last-stored measurements. An example of a delta value is the CPU percent for each process, which is computed using the values measured between refreshes.

Below the process table, there is another table that displays the sum of the values for each column of the process table. For example, this table might provide a good idea of the percentage of total CPU used by the top 20 CPU-consuming processes.

You can refresh the data by either clicking on the Refresh button in the menu bar or by activating the automatic refresh option through the menu bar. To save the statistics information, you can export the table to any of the following file formats:
  • XML
  • HTML
  • CSV