As I wrote in the Debian bugreport about this, Linux no longer allows non-root users to get at the per-process I/O throughput information needed by iotop, as a result if it causing security issues (CVE-2011-2494):
https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/10/1/170 The crash itself will be replaced by an error when iotop is next syncronised from Debian. ** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #644616 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=644616 ** Also affects: iotop (Debian) via http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=644616 Importance: Unknown Status: Unknown ** CVE added: http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=2011-2494 ** Changed in: iotop (Ubuntu) Status: Confirmed => In Progress -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/879767 Title: iotop fails to launch anymore as normal user (requires sudo) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/iotop/+bug/879767/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
