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Summary

psutil is a module providing an interface for retrieving information on all running processes and system utilization (CPU, disk, memory, network) in a portable way by using Python, implementing many functionalities offered by command line tools such as:

• ps
• top
• df
• kill
• free
• lsof
• netstat
• ifconfig
• nice
• ionice
• iostat
• iotop
• uptime
• tty

It currently supports Linux, Windows, OSX and FreeBSD, both 32-bit and 64-bit, with Python versions from 2.4 to 3.3 by using a single code base. Pypy is also known to work.

Example applications

top clone (see source code)	network stats (see source code)	iotop clone (see source code)

Example usages

CPU

>>> import psutil
>>> psutil.cpu_times()
cputimes(user=3961.46, nice=169.729, system=2150.659, idle=16900.540, iowait=629.509, irq=0.0, softirq=19.422)
>>>
>>> for x in range(3):
...     psutil.cpu_percent(interval=1)
... 
4.0
5.9
3.8
>>>
>>> for x in range(3):
...     psutil.cpu_percent(interval=1, percpu=True)
... 
[4.0, 6.9]
[7.0, 8.5]
[1.2, 9.0]
>>>
>>> psutil.NUM_CPUS
2
>>>

Memory

>>> psutil.phymem_usage()
usage(total=4153868288, used=2854199296, free=1299668992, percent=34.6)
>>> psutil.virtmem_usage()
usage(total=2097147904, used=4096, free=2097143808, percent=0.0)
>>>

Disks

>>> psutil.disk_partitions()
[partition(device='/dev/sda1', mountpoint='/', fstype='ext4'),
 partition(device='/dev/sda2', mountpoint='/home', fstype='ext4')]
>>>
>>> psutil.disk_usage('/')
usage(total=21378641920, used=4809781248, free=15482871808, percent=22.5)
>>>
>>> psutil.disk_io_counters()
iostat(read_count=719566, write_count=1082197, read_bytes=18626220032, 
       write_bytes=24081764352, read_time=5023392, write_time=63199568)
>>>

Network

>>> psutil.network_io_counters(pernic=True)
{'lo': iostat(bytes_sent=799953745, bytes_recv=799953745, packets_sent=453698, packets_recv=453698), 
 'eth0': iostat(bytes_sent=734324837, bytes_recv=4163935363, packets_sent=3605828, packets_recv=4096685)}
>>>

Process management

>>> import psutil
>>> psutil.get_pid_list()
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 46, 48, 50, 51, 178, 182, 222, 223, 224,
268, 1215, 1216, 1220, 1221, 1243, 1244, 1301, 1601, 2237, 2355,
2637, 2774, 3932, 4176, 4177, 4185, 4187, 4189, 4225, 4243, 4245, 
4263, 4282, 4306, 4311, 4312, 4313, 4314, 4337, 4339, 4357, 4358, 
4363, 4383, 4395, 4408, 4433, 4443, 4445, 4446, 5167, 5234, 5235, 
5252, 5318, 5424, 5644, 6987, 7054, 7055, 7071]
>>>
>>> psutil.pid_exists(7055)
True
>>>
>>> p = psutil.Process(7055)
>>> p.name
'python'
>>> p.exe
'/usr/bin/python'
>>> p.getcwd()
'/home/giampaolo'
>>> p.cmdline
['/usr/bin/python', 'main.py']
>>>
>>> str(p.status)
'running'
>>> p.username
'giampaolo'
>>> p.create_time
1267551141.5019531
>>> p.terminal
'/dev/pts/0'
>>>
>>> p.uids
user(real=1000, effective=1000, saved=1000)
>>> p.gids
group(real=1000, effective=1000, saved=1000)
>>>
>>> p.get_cpu_percent(interval=1.0)
12.1
>>> p.get_memory_percent()
0.63423
>>>
>>> p.get_memory_info()
meminfo(rss=7471104, vms=68513792)
>>> p.get_cpu_times()
cputimes(user=1.02, system=0.31)
>>> 
>>> p.get_io_counters()
io(read_count=478001, write_count=59371, read_bytes=700416, write_bytes=69632)
>>> 
>>> p.get_open_files()
[openfile(path='/home/giampaolo/svn/psutil/somefile', fd=3)]
>>>
>>> p.get_connections()
[connection(fd=115, family=2, type=1, local_address=('10.0.0.1', 48776), remote_address=('93.186.135.91', 80), status='ESTABLISHED'),
 connection(fd=117, family=2, type=1, local_address=('10.0.0.1', 43761), remote_address=('72.14.234.100', 80), status='CLOSING'),
 connection(fd=119, family=2, type=1, local_address=('10.0.0.1', 60759), remote_address=('72.14.234.104', 80), status='ESTABLISHED'),
 connection(fd=123, family=2, type=1, local_address=('10.0.0.1', 51314), remote_address=('72.14.234.83', 443), status='SYN_SENT')]
>>>
>>> p.get_threads()
[thread(id=5234, user_time=22.5, system_time=9.2891), 
 thread(id=5235, user_time=0.0, system_time=0.0), 
 thread(id=5236, user_time=0.0, system_time=0.0), 
 thread(id=5237, user_time=0.0707, system_time=1.1)]
>>>
>>> p.nice
0
>>> p.nice = 10  # set/change process priority
>>> p.nice
10
>>>
>>> p.suspend()
>>> p.resume()
>>>
>>> p.terminate()
>>> p.wait(timeout=3)
0
>>>
>>> psutil.test()
UID       PID %CPU %MEM     VSZ     RSS START     TIME COMMAND
0           0  0.0  0.0       0       0 00:12    00:00 [sched]
0           1  0.0  0.3    1740     600 00:12    00:04 /sbin/init
0           2  0.0  0.0       0       0 00:12    00:00 [kthreadd]
0           3  0.1  0.0       0       0 00:12    00:00 [migration/0]
...
0       13239  0.0  2.6    13604   1044 00:38    00:00 /usr/sbin/smbd -D
1000    23648  1.1  2.4    12512   2008 14:43    00:06 sshd: user@pts/2
1000    23649  0.0  1.2    5944    3340 14:43    00:00 -bash
0       25926  0.3  1.1    5432    3072 17:55    00:00 -su
0       28655  0.0  1.0    4932    3204 21:58    00:00 python _psutil.py
>>>

Donate

A lot of time and effort went into making psutil as it is right now. If you feel psutil is useful to you or your business and want to support it's future development please consider donating us (Giampaolo Rodolà and Jay Loden) some money. We only ask for a small donation, but of course we appreciate any amount.

People who donated so far

• Kim Gräsman

Mailing lists

users:
http://groups.google.com/group/psutil/

SVN commits and issue tracker changes:
http://groups.google.com/group/psutil-commits/

Contribute

If you want to help or just give us suggestions about the project and other related things, subscribe to the discussion mailing list. If you want to talk with project team members about psutil and other related things feel free to contact us at the following addresses:

Feedbacks and suggestions are greatly appreciated as well as new testers and coders willing to join the development.
For any bug report, patch proposal or feature request, add an entry into the Issue Tracker.

Thank you.

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