Member-only story
The One Linux Command That Saved Me From a Server Meltdown
--
Share
Intro:
It was 2 a.m. My Linux server’s CPU was maxed, memory drained, and I couldn’t even SSH in without delays. I was on the edge of rebooting blindly — until one command gave me exactly what I needed to fix it. It’s a tool every admin should know (but few use correctly).
The Command That Saved Me:
htop
Yes — that’s it. But not just running htop — using it right.
What I Saw
Once I launched htop, I immediately noticed:
- One rogue Python process eating 99% CPU
- Swap usage nearing 100%
- A forgotten cron job gone wild
- The culprit was running under a neglected service account
Why htop Beats top
Unlike top, htop gives:
- Real-time color-coded display
- Easy sorting by CPU, memory, etc.
- Interactive process control (F9)
- Tree view of processes (F5)
- You can even tag multiple PIDs and kill them all together
How I Fixed It
- Found the PID instantly