Process Management

● Processor, memory and kernel informations

● Monitoring process
● Killing process
● Foreground and background process

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Processor informations
Checking our processor clock:
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz
...

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Memory informations
Displaying our memory informations:
$ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 483100 kB
MemFree: 25352 kB
...
More detailed informations:
$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 471 445 26 0 3 119
-/+ buffers/cache: 322 149
Swap: 996 230 765

GUI based informations:

$ gnome-system-monitor
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Kernel and hardware info
Check our kernel:
$ uname -a
Linux linuxmint 2.6.24-16-generic ...

$ dmesg | grep Linux

[ 0.000000] Linux version 2.6.24-16-generic ...

Displaying hardware informations:

$ dmesg | less

Displaying PCI hardware info (vga, sound card, etc):

$ lspci

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Monitoring process
Displaying active processes:
$ ps
PID TTY TIME CMD
9861 pts/0 00:00:00 bash
10157 pts/0 00:00:00 ps

PID: Process identity

TTY: Terminal where the process is running
TIME: Time needed by CPU to complete the process
CMD: The command which is executed

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Monitoring process
Displaying all active processes:
$ ps a
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
4471 tty3 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4473 tty6 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6
8408 tty1 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
9861 pts/0 Ss 0:00 bash
10158 pts/0 R+ 0:00 ps a

STAT is the status of the process, which are: Uninterruptible

sleep, Running, Interruptible sleep, Stopped, session leader,
foreground, etc. Further info see chapter PROCESS STATE
CODES in ps manual.

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Monitoring process
Displaying all active processes from all user:
$ ps au
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START ...
root 4471 0.0 0.0 716 424 tty3 Ss+ 08:14
root 4473 0.0 0.0 716 424 tty6 Ss+ 08:14
root 8408 0.0 0.0 716 424 tty1 Ss+ 08:14
joni 9861 0.0 0.0 716 424 pts/0 Ss 11:07
joni 10158 0.0 0.0 716 424 pts/0 R+ 11:07

USER : user name who run the process

%CPU/MEM: percentage CPU/MEM used by process
VSZ : virtual memory size of the process in KB
RSS : resident set size, RAM used in KB
START : the time process start
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Monitoring process
Displaying all active processes from all user including non-tty:
$ ps aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START ...
root 4471 0.0 0.0 716 424 tty3 Ss+ 08:14
root 4473 0.0 0.0 716 424 tty6 Ss+ 08:14
root 8408 0.0 0.0 716 424 tty1 Ss+ 08:14
root 8438 0.0 0.0 716 424 ? Ss 08:14
root 8439 0.0 0.0 716 424 ? Ss 08:14
root 8440 0.0 0.0 716 424 ? Ss 08:14
joni 9861 0.0 0.0 716 424 pts/0 Ss 11:07
joni 10158 0.0 0.0 716 424 pts/0 R+ 11:07

Displaying process which is not associated or executed from a

terminal, such as init process, daemon, etc.
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Display a tree of processes
$ pstree -p | less
init(1)─┬─NetworkManager(4864)───{NetworkManager}(5045)
├─NetworkManagerD(4878)
├─acpid(4646)
├─apache2(8271)─┬─apache2(8321)
│ ├─apache2(8323)
│ ├─apache2(8324)

Process tree often needed when we have to terminate a parent

process, because the child process is unable to kill.

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Monitoring process real time
$ top

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Terminating (kill) process

Use the PID to kill a process:

$ kill <PID>
$ kill 8710

If command above failed, use option “-9”:

$ kill -9 8710

LAB:
Open new terminal in Desktop and type gedit command. Try to find
the terminal's PID (not gedit PID) and kill. Make sure the terminal
and gedit terminated properly.

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Foreground process

Process 1 Process 2 Process 3

Background process

Process 1 Foreground process run

sequentially, when
Process 2 background process run
simultaneously.

Process 3

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Foreground and background

Sample of foreground process:

$ find / -name xyz > result.txt 2>&1

We have to wait until process above finished, then we can run

another process:
$ ls -l

Sample of background process:

$ find / -name xyz > result.txt 2>&1 &

At the same time, we can run another process directly:

$ ls -l

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Change foreground to background
Changing foreground process to background:
$ find / -name xyz > result.txt 2>&1
Ctrl+Z
[1]+ Stopped find / -name xyz > result.txt 2>&1

To see pending/paused process:

$ jobs
[1]+ Stopped find / -name xyz > result.txt 2>&1

Change process number 1 to background:

$ bg 1
Check again with jobs:
$ jobs

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Change background to foreground
Changing background process to foreground:
$ find / -name xyz > result.txt 2>&1 &

To see background process:

$ jobs
[1]+ Running find / -name xyz > result.txt 2>&1 &

Change process number 1 to foreground:

$ fg 1
Or if it the only one:
$ fg

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