Abstract: This invention concerns a process for monitoring and/or regulating cloth tension of a length of cloth processed on a cylinder napping machine, whereby the napping machine has pile rollers and/or counterpile rollers on the jacket of the cylinder which subject the cloth to pile-raising energy and/or counterpile-raising energy, and a certain set point tension value which assures optimum distribution of cloth tension on the cylinder is set at the cloth inlet and the cloth delivery end of the napping machine, during operation the cloth tension is measured preferably continuously and controlled at the inlet end and the outlet end and the tension values are compared, and in the event of a deviation from the predetermined tension values the respective deviating tension is automatically adjusted again to the predetermined set point value.