Introduction to Resxtop

Resxtop is an utility found within the vSphere CLI package.  This application can be currently used with a Linux client but not with a Windows client.

Once the vSphere CLI package has been downloaded and installed within a Linux client, the utility can be started in interactive mode by entering:

resxtop –server IP address

The user name and password for the ESXi host will need to be entered.  The initial interactive mode screen should then appear.

Hitting the “f” key will define the fields displayed:

When in interactive mode, the following single-key shortcuts are available:

f –> Displays a panel for adding or removing statistics columns

o –> Displays a panel for changing the order of statistics columns

q –> Quit interactive mode

c –> Switch to the CPU resource utilization panel

p –> Switch to the CPU Power utilization panel

m –> Switch to the memory resource utilization panel

n –> Switch to the network resource utilization panel

d –> Switch to the storage (disk) adapter resource utilization panel

u –> Switch to the storage (disk) device resource utilization panel

v –> Switch to the storage (disk) virtual machine resource utilization panel

i –> Switch to the interrupt panel

W –> Write the current setup to the configuration file

The utility can also be used in batch mode.  To use the batch mode, run resxtop in interface mode.  In each panels, select the columns you want.  Save the configuration to a file by using the “W” key.  Run a command such as

resxtop –server IP address –b > file.csv –n 10

Some of the flags in batch mode are:

a –> Show all statistics; this by-passes the configuration file

b –> Runs resxtop in batch mode

n –> Number of interactions

d –> Specifies the delay between statistics snapshots.  The default is five seconds.  The minimum is two seconds.

The batch mode can be used without the –n parameter.  The utility will run until the key combination of Control + C is used.  Additional information concerning this utility can be found within the VMware Resource Management Guide.  The current version for ESXi version 4.1 can be found at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_resource_mgmt.pdf.  An appendix chapter is present concerning esxtop and resxtop.