Linux 101 : Processes - An overview of the "ps" command
Below are some examples of the options used with the "ps".
Displaying the running processes:
Displaying the running processes with the "memory" and "cpu" consumption:
Displaying also the PPID:
Showing all the processes with a "long" listing
Showing all the processes with a "full" listing:
The "eF" option shows more information that the "ef" option:
The "aux" option displays the below information:
a = means for all users
u = means the user's ID
x = displays also the detached processes - not attached to a terminal - like the system processes.
u = means the user's ID
x = displays also the detached processes - not attached to a terminal - like the system processes.
Below is a short description of the information displayed by the above commands:
- %CPU: CPU utilization of processes
- %MEM: RAM usage
- RSS: Non-swapped physical memory
- S: could have any of the below values:
R: running
S: sleeping, can be interrupted
T: stopped
W: paging
X: dead
Z: zombie
- PPID: the parent process ID of the running process
- VSZ: virtual memory
- COMMAND: the command of the running process
- TIME: CPU time
- TTY: the "tty" (terminal)
- PSR: the processor assigned to the process
- START: the time the command started executing
- SZ: the swap space
Customized "ps" output:
Below are a couple of examples of a "ps" customized output.
The command sorts the processes by "memory usage" and displays the fields mentioned in the command:
The below command sorts the processes by "users" and displays the fields mentioned in the command:
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