top5_cpu_processes []

The following commands show you the static cpu usage of your server:

ps -eo user,pcpu,pid,cmd --sort:-pcpu | head -6

Shows more headers and information:

ps aux --sort:-pcpu | head -7

Uses the sort command of –sort

ps -eo user,pcpu,pid,cmd | sort -r -k2 | head -6

It is important to inspect the 'State' column when investigating processes. Below are the flat definitions:

State	Definition
D	uninterruptible sleep (usually IO)
R	running or runnable (on run queue)
S	interruptible sleep (waiting for an event to complete)
T	stopped, either by a job control signal or because it is being traced
X	dead (should never be seen)
Z	defunct (“zombie”) process, terminated but not reaped by its parent

<	high-priority (not nice to other users)
N	low-priority (nice to other users)
L	has pages locked into memory (for real-time and custom IO)
s	is a session leader
l	is multi-threaded (using CLONE_THREAD, like NPTL pthreads do)
+	is in the foreground process group