Sysadmin daily useful ps aux command examples in Linux
In this guide, We will see various types of Ps aux command examples. These examples would be useful in sysadmins’ daily tasks to monitor the running process on the system.
ps command Examples
- ps command stands for processes status.
- The ps command is used to find the running process on the system.
- ps command gets the information about the process from a virtual file called ‘/proc’ filesystem.
- It is the most important utility or command for sysadmins to monitor the running process which helps you to understand what’s going on in the system.
You can use the ps command in various ways to get the output but only some of them are actually used on a daily basis or practically.
In this tutorial, we are going to look at the top 10 ps aux command examples that are useful in your daily operations to monitor active running processes on the system.
1. Show All the process in a current shell
If you run only ps command without any arguments or parameters, it will give you current shell process in the output,
$ ps
PID TTY TIME CMD
4979 pts/8 00:00:00 bash
5711 pts/8 00:00:00 ps
2. Print all running process
If you want to check all the running process then use below ps command with argument,
$ ps -A or ps -e
1048 ? 00:00:00 polkitd
1138 ? 00:03:00 php-fpm7.0
1144 ? 00:00:00 systemd
1160 ? 00:00:00 php-fpm7.0
1161 ? 00:00:00 php-fpm7.0
3. To see every running process on the system
In the ps ax command, you will get all the running processes with the full-format command of the process. and ps aux the additional info of the running process like the user, CPU, a memory of that process.
you will see the difference in output below,
$ ps ax
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1 ? Ss 1:58 /sbin/init
2 ? S 0:00 [kthreadd]
3 ? S 0:22 [ksoftirqd/0]
5 ? S< 0:00 [kworker/0:0H]
$ ps aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1138 0.0 0.5 4636 1296 ? Ss Jul06 3:00 php-fpm
mysql 1144 0.0 0.1 4526 3856 ? Ss Jul06 0:00 mysql
www-data 1160 0.0 0.0 4636 1012 ? S Jul06 0:00 php-fpm
mysql 1163 0.0 0.0 3384 1252 ? S Jul06 0:00 (sd-pam)
4. To see every process on the system using standard syntax
Below command displays output with the full-format listing,
$ ps -ef
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
root 14244 8646 0 Jul30 ? 00:00:00 sshd: [email protected]/6
root 14307 1424 0 Jul30 pts/6 00:00:00 -bash
root 18948 1234 0 Jul26 ? 00:00:00 /lib/systemd/systemd
root 18954 1894 0 Jul26 ? 00:00:00 (sd-pam)
root 20982 8647 0 Jul30 ? 00:00:37 sshd: [email protected]/4
root 21044 2098 0 Jul30 pts/4 00:00:00 -bash
www-data 30119 1909 0 06:25 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
5. Display process own by you
The below command will display the active process which is own by the current user.
For example, if you are login with root user then the command will display an active process which is running with root user.
$ ps -xu
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.2 185336 5268 ? Ss Jul06 1:58 /sbin/init
root 2 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jul06 0:00 [kthreadd]
root 3 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jul06 0:22 [ksoftirqd/0]
root 5 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< Jul06 0:00 [kworker/0:0H]
root 7 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jul06 3:36 [rcu_sched]
6. Display processes by user name or id (UID)
$ ps -fu linuxgrow
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
linuxgrow 1048 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1
linuxgrow 1138 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:03:00 php-fpm
linuxgrow 1909 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:02:17 apach2
linuxgrow 2030 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:05:39 /usr/sbin/nmbd -D
linuxgrow 2138 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:00:28 postfix
$ ps -fu 1000
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
linuxgrow 1048 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1
linuxgrow 1138 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:03:00 php-fpm
linuxgrow 1909 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:02:17 apach2
linuxgrow 2030 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:05:39 /usr/sbin/nmbd -D
linuxgrow 2138 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:00:28 postfix
7. List process by PID
This is mostly used the command on a daily basis. you run top command and found that one of an active process taking high CPU and you want to check which process is utilizing high CPU. That time copy the PID of that process and run with ps command as shown below,
$ ps -fp 30119
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
www-data 30119 1909 0 06:25 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
8. List process with multiple PID’s
If you want to check active process of multiple PID then run below command,
$ ps -fp 30119,1380,1138
root 1138 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:03:00 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.0/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
mysql 1380 1189 0 Jul06 ? 00:25:10 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql
www-data 30119 1909 0 06:25 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
9. Display Process Tree
This command will help you to know how processes are linked to each other, processes whose parents have been killed are adopted by the init (or systemd).
$ ps -e --forest
PID TTY TIME CMD
1138 ? 00:03:00 php-fpm7.0
1160 ? 00:00:00 \_ php-fpm7.0
1161 ? 00:00:00 \_ php-fpm7.0
1144 ? 00:00:00 systemd
1163 ? 00:00:00 \_ (sd-pam)
1189 ? 00:00:00 mysqld_safe
1380 ? 00:25:10 \_ mysqld
1909 ? 00:02:17 apache2
30119 ? 00:00:00 \_ apache2
30120 ? 00:00:00 \_ apache2
10. High CPU and Memory usage find top running process
$ ps -eo pid,ppid,cmd,%mem,%cpu --sort=-%mem | head
PID PPID CMD %MEM %CPU
1380 1189 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir= 4.3 0.0
1909 1 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start 1.4 0.0
3787 1909 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start 0.7 0.0
3119 1909 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start 0.7 0.0
3123 1909 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start 0.7 0.0
3121 1909 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start 0.6 0.0
11. Find active process with the process name
$ ps -ef | grep apache
root 1909 1 0 Jul06 ? 00:02:17 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 3786 1909 0 11:53 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 3787 1909 0 11:53 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
$ ps aux | grep ssh
root 864 0.0 0.2 65508 5116 ? Ss Jul06 0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd -D
root 4356 0.0 0.3 97052 7100 ? Ss 13:38 0:00 sshd: [email protected]/1
root 4471 0.0 0.3 96960 6772 ? Ss Jul27 0:08 sshd: [email protected]/3
root 4903 0.0 0.3 96964 6780 ? Ss 14:54 0:00 sshd: [email protected]/8
I hope you like the article if you find any difficulties then please do comment queries or problem via the comment section, till then stay tuned to Linuxgrow.com for more such valuable articles.
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