Finding out what processes are running with ps

The jobs that we've been talking about so far are actually types of processes. Processes are programs, scripts, or commands—including anything you do in the UNIX system. All jobs are processes, but not all processes are jobs.

Occasionally, you may want to find out what processes are running on the UNIX system. You can do this using ps, as shown in Code Listing 9.11.

To find out what processes are running with ps

  • ps
    At the shell prompt, type ps to see the list of the current processes that you're running, including processes for your current shell as well as any other jobs (Code Listing 9.11).
Code Listing 9.11. Using ps, you can find out what processes are currently running.
 $ ps PID TTY STAT TIME ...

Get Unix: Visual QuickStart Guide now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial