How to find out which processes are using swap space in Linux?

Shameem picture Shameem · Jan 26, 2009 · Viewed 329.6k times · Source

Under Linux, how do I find out which process is using the swap space more?

Answer

lolotux picture lolotux · Aug 24, 2011

The best script I found is on this page : http://northernmost.org/blog/find-out-what-is-using-your-swap/

Here's one variant of the script and no root needed:

#!/bin/bash 
# Get current swap usage for all running processes
# Erik Ljungstrom 27/05/2011
# Modified by Mikko Rantalainen 2012-08-09
# Pipe the output to "sort -nk3" to get sorted output
# Modified by Marc Methot 2014-09-18
# removed the need for sudo

SUM=0
OVERALL=0
for DIR in `find /proc/ -maxdepth 1 -type d -regex "^/proc/[0-9]+"`
do
    PID=`echo $DIR | cut -d / -f 3`
    PROGNAME=`ps -p $PID -o comm --no-headers`
    for SWAP in `grep VmSwap $DIR/status 2>/dev/null | awk '{ print $2 }'`
    do
        let SUM=$SUM+$SWAP
    done
    if (( $SUM > 0 )); then
        echo "PID=$PID swapped $SUM KB ($PROGNAME)"
    fi
    let OVERALL=$OVERALL+$SUM
    SUM=0
done
echo "Overall swap used: $OVERALL KB"