pidstat

pidstat helps monitoring processes on their CPU, memory, and disk activity

Installation

When pidstat is not installed by default, it can be added to the system using the relevant software package.

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Option	Description
-C NAME	Define task(s) to monitor, may be using regular expression
-d	Show disk activity
--dec=0\|1\|2	Set number of decimals, with 2 being the default
-e COMMAND ARGS	Execute a COMMAND (with arguments ARGS) and monitor it with pidstat
-G NAME	Define process name(s) to monitor, may be using regular expression, can be used with -t
-H	Include timestamp (seconds since epoch)
-h	Do not include summary, all output on one line, making it easier to parse by external tools
--human	Human-readable formats
-I	Divide CPU usage by total number of processors, for SMP environments
-l	Include full command and arguments
-p { pid[,pid2,pid3] \| SELF \| ALL}	Monitor only one process, multiple processes, pidstat itself, or all
-R	Show information about realtime priority and scheduling
-r	Show page faults and memory usage
-s	Show stack usage
-T { TASK, CHILD, ALL}	Define what should be included for tasks.
-t	Include threads with selected tasks, can be used with -G
-U	Show username instead of UID
-u	Show CPU usage statistics
-V	Show version number
-v	Show information about some kernel tables
-w	Show task switching activities

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Run pidstat with interval of 3 seconds

pidstat 3

Run pidstat with interval of 5 seconds, repeat 12 times (=60 seconds), then stop

pidstat 5 12

Show disk activity per process

pidstat -d 3

Start Chrome and monitor it, show details every 3 seconds, until Chrome is closed

pidstat 3 -e /opt/google/chrome/chrome

The following articles include an example on how to use pidstat and might be worth further exploring.