Checking processes
Using the command ps it is possible to view the
processes which are currently running on your system. By including
a combination of run-time flags it is possible to output the user
(UID), process identifier (PID), parent
process identifier (PPID), start time
(STIME), cumulative execution time (TIME)
and command name (CMD) of each process on the system.
The output will look something like this:
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
Croe 29527 16663 0 15:55:44 pts/37 38:24 netscape
Jara 29793 29792 0 16:25:55 pts/17 0:01 gs
sue 27128 1 0 12:02:30 pts/35 0:01 ttsession
This output is the result of running the command ps
-af. For more on the runtime flags of ps type
man ps
It is worth checking the processes on your system from time to
time as occasionally when you close down an application, or
something crashes, the associated processes remain. If processes
are defunct, usually written DEFUNCT in the
CMD column of the ps output, or are
simply unwanted, then they can be removed using the command
kill. It is a rule that processes can only be killed
by their owners or by the root user; this is useful as it saves you
(or anyone else) inadvertently killing the active processes of
other users.
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