If you’re an administrator of systems, no matter the platform, you know that it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself having to troubleshoot any given problem. Sometimes the problems are really simple, so the troubleshooting is quick and painless. On other occasions, however, the problems are considerably more challenging. When those troublesome issues arise, you need to have the right tools to find answers.

But what are those tools? Do they even exist? Where do you turn, especially given most of those servers you manage are without a GUI.

Take a breath and relax. This is Linux, so everything you need to troubleshoot those issues is either pre-installed or just a command away from installation. This guide, written by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic Premium, looks at some of the tools available to help you get your Linux servers out of just about any type of sticky situation.

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top

This is a very helpful tool that displays what processes are running and using memory on your system. top will list out all running, sleeping, stopped, and zombie processes, and display (in real time) which processes are consuming your system’s CPU and memory. Each listed process will include a PID (process ID), the user associated with the process, the time the service was launched, and the command associated with the process.

This tool is very useful when you suspect an application or service is consuming more system resources than it should. Launch top without any arguments, locate the PID associated with the process gobbling up too much CPU or RAM, and then act accordingly. If you know it’s safe to kill the process (or restart it), you can do so using the PID or the associated command.

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TIME SAVED: Crafting this content required 20 hours of dedicated writing, editing, research, and design.