---
name: "lxc-top"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "lxc"
version: "1:7.0.0-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/lxc-top"
---

# lxc-top(1)

monitor container statistics

## NAME

lxc-top - monitor container statistics

## SYNOPSIS

**lxc-top**  \[--help\] \[--delay *delay*\] \[--sort *sortby*\] \[--reverse\]

## DESCRIPTION

**lxc-top** displays container statistics. The output is updated every *delay* seconds, and is ordered according to the *sortby* value given. **lxc-top** will display as many containers as can fit in your terminal. Press 'q' to quit. Press one of the sort key letters to sort by that statistic. Pressing a sort key letter a second time reverses the sort order.

## OPTIONS

- FC**-d, --delay** F\[0\]*delay*

  Amount of time in seconds to delay between screen updates. The default is 3 seconds.

- FC**-s, --sort** F\[0\]*sortby*

  Sort the containers by name, cpu use, or memory use. The *sortby* argument should be one of the letters n,c,b,m,k to sort by name, cpu use, block I/O, memory, or kernel memory use respectively. The default is 'n'.

- FC**-r, --reverse**F\[0\]

  Reverse the default sort order. By default, names sort in ascending alphabetical order and values sort in descending amounts (ie. largest value first).

## EXAMPLE

- lxc-top --delay 1 --sort m

  Display containers, updating every second, sorted by memory use.

## NOTES

For performance reasons the kernel does not account kernel memory use unless a kernel memory limit is set. If a limit is not set,  **lxc-top** will display kernel memory use as 0. If no containers are being accounted, the KMem column will not be displayed. A limit can be set by specifying

```
FC
      lxc.cgroup.memory.kmem.limit_in_bytes = number
      F[0]
```

in your container configuration file, see [**lxc.conf**(5)](/lxc.conf/5.md).

## SEE ALSO

[**lxc**(7)](/lxc/7.md), [**lxc-create**(1)](/lxc-create/1.md), [**lxc-copy**(1)](/lxc-copy/1.md), [**lxc-destroy**(1)](/lxc-destroy/1.md), [**lxc-start**(1)](/lxc-start/1.md), [**lxc-stop**(1)](/lxc-stop/1.md), [**lxc-execute**(1)](/lxc-execute/1.md), [**lxc-console**(1)](/lxc-console/1.md), [**lxc-monitor**(1)](/lxc-monitor/1.md), [**lxc-wait**(1)](/lxc-wait/1.md), [**lxc-cgroup**(1)](/lxc-cgroup/1.md), [**lxc-ls**(1)](/lxc-ls/1.md), [**lxc-info**(1)](/lxc-info/1.md), [**lxc-freeze**(1)](/lxc-freeze/1.md), [**lxc-unfreeze**(1)](/lxc-unfreeze/1.md), [**lxc-attach**(1)](/lxc-attach/1.md), [**lxc.conf**(5)](/lxc.conf/5.md)