11.6.1 Interprocess Communication: ipcs

The command ipcs produces a list of the IPC resources currently in use:

------ Shared Memory Segments --------
key        shmid      owner     perms      bytes      nattch     status
0x00000000 58261504   tux    600        393216     2          dest
0x00000000 58294273   tux    600        196608     2          dest
0x00000000 83886083   tux    666        43264      2
0x00000000 83951622   tux    666        192000     2
0x00000000 83984391   tux    666        282464     2
0x00000000 84738056   root      644        151552     2          dest

------ Semaphore Arrays --------
key        semid      owner     perms      nsems
0x4d038abf 0          tux    600        8

------ Message Queues --------
key        msqid      owner      perms      used-bytes   messages

11.6.2 Process List: ps

The command ps produces a list of processes. Most parameters must be written without a minus sign. Refer to ps --help for a brief help or to the man page for extensive help.

To list all processes with user and command line information, use ps axu:

tux@mercury:~> ps axu
USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root         1  0.0  0.0    696   272 ?        S    12:59   0:01 init [5]
root         2  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        SN   12:59   0:00 [ksoftirqd
root         3  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:59   0:00 [events
[...]
tux    4047  0.0  6.0 158548 31400 ?        Ssl  13:02   0:06 mono-best 
tux    4057  0.0  0.7   9036  3684 ?        Sl   13:02   0:00 /opt/gnome
tux    4067  0.0  0.1   2204   636 ?        S    13:02   0:00 /opt/gnome
tux    4072  0.0  1.0  15996  5160 ?        Ss   13:02   0:00 gnome-scre
tux    4114  0.0  3.7 130988 19172 ?        SLl  13:06   0:04 sound-juic
tux    4818  0.0  0.3   4192  1812 pts/0    Ss   15:59   0:00 -bash
tux    4959  0.0  0.1   2324   816 pts/0    R+   16:17   0:00 ps axu

To check how many sshd processes are running, use the option -p together with the command pidof, which lists the process IDs of the given processes.

tux@mercury:~> ps -p $(pidof sshd)
  PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
 3524 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd -o PidFile=/var/run/sshd.init.pid
 4813 ?        Ss     0:00 sshd: tux [priv]
 4817 ?        R      0:00 sshd: tux@pts/0

The process list can be formatted according to your needs. The option -L returns a list of all keywords. Enter the following command to issue a list of all processes sorted by memory usage:

tux@mercury:~> ps ax --format pid,rss,cmd --sort rss
  PID   RSS CMD
    2     0 [ksoftirqd/0]
    3     0 [events/0]
    4     0 [khelper]
    5     0 [kthread]
   11     0 [kblockd/0]
   12     0 [kacpid]
  472     0 [pdflush]
  473     0 [pdflush]
[...]
 4028 17556 nautilus --no-default-window --sm-client-id default2
 4118 17800 ksnapshot
 4114 19172 sound-juicer
 4023 25144 gnome-panel --sm-client-id default1
 4047 31400 mono-best --debug /usr/lib/beagle/Best.exe --autostarted
 3973 31520 mono-beagled --debug /usr/lib/beagle/BeagleDaemon.exe --bg --aut

11.6.3 Process Tree: pstree

The command pstree produces a list of processes in the form of a tree:

tux@mercury:~> pstree
init-+-NetworkManagerD
     |-acpid
     |-3*[automount]
     |-cron
     |-cupsd
     |-2*[dbus-daemon]
     |-dbus-launch
     |-dcopserver
     |-dhcpcd
     |-events/0
     |-gpg-agent
     |-hald-+-hald-addon-acpi
     |      `-hald-addon-stor
     |-kded
     |-kdeinit-+-kdesu---su---kdesu_stub---yast2---y2controlcenter
     |         |-kio_file
     |         |-klauncher
     |         |-konqueror
     |         |-konsole-+-bash---su---bash
     |         |         `-bash
     |         `-kwin
     |-kdesktop---kdesktop_lock---xmatrix
     |-kdesud
     |-kdm-+-X
     |     `-kdm---startkde---kwrapper
[...]

The parameter -p adds the process ID to a given name. To have the command lines displayed as well, use the -a parameter:

11.6.4 Processes: top

The command top, which stands for "table of processes," displays a list of processes that is refreshed every two seconds. To terminate the program, press Q. The parameter -n 1 terminates the program after a single display of the process list. The following is an example output of the command top -n 1:

tux@mercury:~> top -n 1
top - 17:06:28 up  2:10,  5 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks:  85 total,   1 running,  83 sleeping,   1 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  5.5% us,  0.8% sy,  0.8% ni, 91.9% id,  1.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:    515584k total,   506468k used,     9116k free,    66324k buffers
Swap:   658656k total,        0k used,   658656k free,   353328k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
    1 root      16   0   700  272  236 S  0.0  0.1   0:01.33 init
    2 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    3 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.27 events/0
    4 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khelper
    5 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthread
   11 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.05 kblockd/0
   12 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpid
  472 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
  473 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.06 pdflush
  475 root      11  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
  474 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.07 kswapd0
  681 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 kseriod
  839 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 reiserfs/0
  923 root      13  -4  1712  552  344 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.67 udevd
 1343 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd
 1587 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 shpchpd_event
 1746 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 w1_control
 1752 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 w1_bus_master1
 2151 root      16   0  1464  496  416 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 acpid
 2165 messageb  16   0  3340 1048  792 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.64 dbus-daemon
 2166 root      15   0  1840  752  556 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.01 syslog-ng
 2171 root      16   0  1600  516  320 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 klogd
 2235 root      15   0  1736  800  652 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.10 resmgrd
 2289 root      16   0  4192 2852 1444 S  0.0  0.6   0:02.05 hald
 2403 root      23   0  1756  600  524 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 hald-addon-acpi
 2709 root      19   0  2668 1076  944 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 NetworkManagerD
 2714 root      16   0  1756  648  564 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.56 hald-addon-stor

If you press F while top is running, a menu opens with which to make extensive changes to the format of the output.

The parameter -U UID monitors only the processes associated with a particular user. Replace UID with the user ID of the user. top -U $(id -u) returns the UID of the user on the basis of the username and displays his processes.

11.6.5 Modify a process' niceness: nice and renice

The kernel determines which processes require more cpu time than others by the process' nice level, also called niceness. The higher the nice level of a process is, the less CPU time it will take from other processes. Nice levels range from -20 (the least nice level) to 19. Negative values can only set by root.

Adjusting the nice level is useful when running a non time-critical process that lasts long and uses large amounts of CPU time, such as compiling a kernel, on a system that also performs other tasks. Making such a process nicer, ensures that the other tasks, for example a webserver, will have a higher priority.

Calling nice without any parameters prints the current niceness:

tux@mercury:~> nice
0

Running nice command increments the current nice level for the given command by 10. Using nice -n level command lets you specify a new niceness relative to the current one.

To change the niceness of a running process, use renice priority -p process id, for example:

renice +5 3266

To renice all processes owned by a specific user, use the option -u user. Process groups are reniced by the option -g process group id.