How To Check Running Process in Ubuntu

This post will guide you how to check All running proceses from the command line in your Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04 system. How do I check running process using ps command under Ubuntu or Debian based system.

• List All Running Process using ps command in Ubuntu
• Check Running Process using top command in Ubuntu
• Find the ID of Process using pgrep command in Ubuntu
• Kill a Process using kill command in Ubuntu

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List All Running Processes using ps command in Ubuntu

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If you want to list all running processes in your Ubuntu system, and you can open a terminal, and type “ps -aux” command at the shell prompt:

$ ps aux | less
$ ps aux | more
$ ps -a

Outputs:

$ ps aux | less
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.1 0.6 225768 6400 ? Ss 01:48 0:01 /sbin/init splash
root 2 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 01:48 0:00 [kthreadd]
root 3 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? I
Check Running Process using top command in Ubuntu

You can also use top command to display Linux processes, and it will provide a dynamic real-time view of a running system. and it can display system summary information as well as a list of processes or threads currently being managed by the linux kernel. type:
 
$ top
 
outputs:
  
  
  
 
top - 02:09:20 up 20 min, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.14, 0.25
Tasks: 279 total, 1 running, 242 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 6.3 us, 2.6 sy, 0.9 ni, 88.8 id, 0.9 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.4 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem : 1006580 total, 74704 free, 690044 used, 241832 buff/cache
KiB Swap: 2097148 total, 1335628 free, 761520 used. 133292 avail Mem

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
5831 devops 20 0 44216 4052 3344 R 23.5 0.4 0:00.05 top
1 root 20 0 225768 6380 4712 S 0.0 0.6 0:01.71 systemd
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
 
Find the ID of Process using pgrep command in Ubuntu
 
 
If you want to find a process by name in your Ubuntu system, and you can use the pgrep command at the shell prompt, type:
 
$ pgrep processName
$ pgrep apache2
 
Outputs:
  
  
 
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devops@devops-ubuntu:~$ pgrep apache2
1365
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
 
Kill a Process using kill command in Ubuntu
 
 
If you want to kill a process on your Ubuntu system, and you can use kill command from the command line, type:
 
$ sudo kill pidNumber
$ sudo kill -i pidNumber
 
You need to find the ID of Process using pgrep or pidof command. For example, you want to kill a process named apache2, its pid is 4280, type:
  
  
  
 
$ sudo kill -9 4280
 
you can also kill a process by name using pkill or killall command, type:
 
$ sudo killall apache2
 
or
  
  
  
 
$ sudo pkill apache2
 
Conclusion
 
 
You should know that how to check running process using ps/top/pgrep commands in your Ubuntu Linux system.