Linux ps Command Tutorial

Processes are one of the main parts of the operations systems. All user side even kernel side operations are executed with the process. The process generally created, run, and killed. This life cycle of the process generally the same. During this life cycle, we may need to get more information about processes. ps command is the most used command to list and get information about processes.

List Current User Processes

The process can be listed without providing any option to the ps command. But this will only list current user’s processes and do not list another system, user, or root user processes.

$ ps

BSD Syntax

ps command is a very universal tool. ps also used other Unix variant operations systems. BSD provides options without a dash. So there is generally no difference but knowing BSD Syntax is beneficial. The following example uses the BSD syntax.

ps  aux

List All Process

In previous steps, we have listed the processes running on the Linux system just for the current users. But generally, we need to list all processes in a single shot. We can provide the -ax options in order to list all processes.

$ ps -A

• PID show process ID
• TTY show running console
• TIME  show the used CPU time
• CMD show the complete command the thread number

List Processes As Tree

In the previous example, we have printed all processes in the list format. There is an alternative presentation format named Tree. Tree format is a hierarchical format which will provide visual information about parent and child relationship.

$ ps -A --forest

List Process Info

While listing processes we can print more information about the process. We will use -u option for this detailed information.

$ ps -A l

• UID show the User ID of process
• PID shows the process ID
• PPID shows the Parent Process ID
• PRI shows Process nice value
• STAT shows the current status of the process
• TTY shows the current console number if connected

List Only Specific Named Process

While listing processes we may need to filter according to process or command name. Here we will use -C parameter and process name for filter operation.

$ ps  -C acpid

Print Only Specific PID Process

Another way to filter processes id according to their PID. We can filter by given their PID. We will use the -p option and PID’s in order to filter. In this example, we will filter multiple processes according to their IP address.

$ ps  -p 1331,1773

Print Only Specific User Processes

Another useful filtering mechanism is filtering processes according to their owners or users. We will use -u option and usernames to filter. In this example, we want to filter username ismail .

$ ps   -u ismail

Display Threads of Process

As we know Linux provides threads to make processes more efficient. Threads are created under the processes and complete given work by the parent process. We will use --ppid option in order to list child threads.

$ ps --ppid 1331

Sort Process According To Cpu Usage

While list process by default they are sorted with their PID’s. There are alternatives to sort processes. We can sort processes according to t their current CPU usage with --sort=pcpu option like below.

$ ps -A --sort=pcpu

Sort Process According To Memory Usage

We can also sort processes according to their memory usage with --sort=pmem command like below.

$ ps -aux --sort=pcpu

Run Ps Real Time Mode

The default behavior of ps command is running and exiting. ps command can be run in real-time without exiting. This is the same as top command. We will use an external command named watch and provide the ps command. In this example, we will list processes in 2-second intervals.

$ watch -n 2 ps