Performance Counters for all processes with same name?

Question

I am currently running nginx on my windows system and am making a little control panel to show statistics of my web server.

I'm trying to get the performance counters for the CPU Usage and Memory Usage for the process but nginx shows as more than one process, it can vary from 2 - 5 depending on the setting in the configuration file. My setting shows two processes, so nginx.exe and nginx.exe

I know what performance counters to use, % Processor Time and Working Set - Private but how would I be able to get the individual values of both processes so i can add them together for a final value?

I tried using the code found at Waffles question but it only could output the values for the first process out of the two.

Thanks.

EDIT - Working Code

for (int i = 0; i < instances.Length; i++)
                    {
                        //i = i + 1;
                        if (i == 0)
                        {
                            toPopulate = new PerformanceCounter
                                ("Process", "Working Set - Private",
                                 toImport[i].ProcessName,
                                 true);
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            toPopulate = new PerformanceCounter
                                ("Process", "Working Set - Private",
                                 toImport[i].ProcessName + "#" + i,
                                 true);
                        }

                        totalNginRam += toPopulate.NextValue();

                        instances[i] = toPopulate;
                    }

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 25 '19 at 09:14

When using Azure Log Analytics, you can specify a path such as

Process(nginx*)\% Processor Time

This seems to be collecting data from all processes that match the wildcard pattern at any time. I can confirm that it picks up data from new processes (started after changing the settings) and it does not pick up data from "dead" processes. However, the InstanceName (such as nginx#3) may be reused, making it hard to tell when a process was "replaced" by a new one.

I have not been able to do this in Performance Monitor. The closest thing is to type "nginx*" in the search box of the "Add Counters" dialog, then select <All searched instances>. This will create one counter per process, and counters will not be dynamically added or removed as processes are started or stopped.

Perhaps it can be done with data collector sets created via PowerShell. However, even if you are able to set a path with a wildcard in the instance part, it is not guaranteed that it will behave as you expect (i.e., automatically collect data from all processes that are running at any time).

Ilian · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-08T06:34:17.387

1

Look at the accepted answer to that question. Try running perfmon. Processes that have the same names will be identified as something like this process#1, process#2, etc. In your case it could be nginx#1, nginx#2, etc.

Edit:

You need to pass the instance name to either the appropriate constructor overload or the InstanceName property. According to this, it looks like the proper format is to use underscore. So, process_1, process_2.

edited Oct 08 '11 at 06:34

answered Oct 08 '11 at 00:34

Ilian

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If it were nginx#2 how would I be able to choose that as the identifier? – Sandeep Bansal Oct 08 '11 at 05:49
Thanks for the info. I'll try it out once I'm working on the application. – Sandeep Bansal Oct 08 '11 at 12:09
Yep changing the instance name worked, I've updated my question with the updated working code for anyone that wants to have a look. – Sandeep Bansal Oct 08 '11 at 21:42

Performance Counters for all processes with same name?

2 Answers2