Scribd
Upload
54 views

Show All Running Processes in Linux: Ps Command

The document discusses various Linux commands for viewing and monitoring running processes, including ps, top, pstree, htop, and atop. The ps command displays information about running processes including process IDs. The top command provides a dynamic real-time view of running processes. Pstree shows processes in a tree structure. Htop is an interactive process viewer like top but allows vertical and horizontal scrolling. Atop monitors system resources like CPU, memory, disk, and network usage and identifies processes responsible for load.

Uploaded by

ankit boxer
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
54 views

Show All Running Processes in Linux: Ps Command

The document discusses various Linux commands for viewing and monitoring running processes, including ps, top, pstree, htop, and atop. The ps command displays information about running processes including process IDs. The top command provides a dynamic real-time view of running processes. Pstree shows processes in a tree structure. Htop is an interactive process viewer like top but allows vertical and horizontal scrolling. Atop monitors system resources like CPU, memory, disk, and network usage and identifies processes responsible for load.

Uploaded by

ankit boxer
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

Show All Running Processes in Linux

by Vivek Gite on October 12, 2006 57 comments

How do I see all running process in Linux? You need to use the ps command. It provide information about the currently running processes, including their process identification numbers (PIDs). Both Linux and UNIX support ps command to display information about all running process. ps command gives a snapshot of the current processes. If you want a repetitive update of this status, use top command.

ps command
Type the following ps command to display all running process:
# ps aux | less

Where,

-A: select all processes a: select all processes on a terminal, including those of other users x: select processes without controlling ttys

Task: see every process on the system


# ps -A # ps -e

Task: See every process except those running as root


# ps -U root -u root -N

Task: See process run by user vivek


# ps -u vivek

Task: top command

The top program provides a dynamic real-time view of a running system. Type the top at command prompt:
# top

Output:

Fig.01: top command: Display Linux Tasks To quit press q, for help press h.

Task: display a tree of processes


pstree shows running processes as a tree. The tree is rooted at either pid or init if pid is omitted. If a user name is specified, all process trees rooted at processes owned by that user are shown.
$ pstree

Sample outputs:

Fig.02: pstree - Display a tree of processes

Task: Print a process tree using ps


# ps -ejH # ps axjf

Task: Get info about threads


Type the following command:
# ps -eLf # ps axms

Task: Get security info


Type the following command:
# ps -eo euser,ruser,suser,fuser,f,comm,label # ps axZ # ps -eM

Task: Save Process Snapshot to a file

Type the following command:


# top -b -n1 > /tmp/process.log

Or you can email result to yourself:


# top -b -n1 | mail -s 'Process snapshot' [email protected]

Task: Lookup process


Use pgrep command. pgrep looks through the currently running processes and lists the process IDs which matches the selection criteria to screen. For example display firefox process id:
$ pgrep firefox

Following command will list the process called sshd which is owned by root user.
$ pgrep -u root sshd

Say hello to htop and atop


htop is interactive process viewer just like top, but allows to scroll the list vertically and horizontally to see all processes and their full command lines. Tasks related to processes (killing, renicing) can be done without entering their PIDs. To install htop type command:
# apt-get install htop

or
# yum install htop

Now type the htop command at the shell prompt:


# htop

Sample outputs:

Fig.03: htop - Interactive Linux / UNIX process viewer (click to enlarge)

atop program
The program atop is an interactive monitor to view the load on a Linux system. It shows the occupation of the most critical hardware resources (from a performance point of view) on system

level, i.e. cpu, memory, disk and network. It also shows which processes are responsible for the indicated load with respect to cpu- and memory load on process level; disk- and network load is only shown per process if a kernel patch has been installed. Type the following command to start atop:
# atop

Sample outputs:

Fig.04: AT Computing's System & Process Monitor

You might also like