Ramdeobaba University, Nagpur
School of Computer Science and Engineering
Session: 2024-2025
Fundamentals of Linux OS I Semester
PRACTICAL NO. 4
Aim: Viewing and managing processes in Linux.
Tasks:
A. View running processes using ps, top, and htop.
B. Manage processes using commands like kill, pkill, killall, nice, and renice.
Theory:
Introduction to Process Management in Ubuntu
In any operating system, including Ubuntu, process management is crucial for ensuring that
programs and services run smoothly and efficiently. A process is essentially an instance of a
running program, and managing these processes involves viewing, controlling, and
optimizing them.
A process in Linux starts every time you start an application or run a program or command. A
program or command creates only one process, but an application on the other hand has the
capability to start multiple processes to accomplish various tasks.
Process States:
Why Process Management is Important:
● Resource Utilization: Efficiently managing processes helps in optimal utilization of
system resources like CPU and memory.
● System Stability: Properly handling processes prevents system crashes and ensures
that critical services are running smoothly.
● Performance Monitoring: Monitoring processes helps in identifying performance
bottlenecks and improving system responsiveness.
Key Concepts:
1. Viewing Processes:
o ps Command: Displays a snapshot of current processes.
o top Command: Provides a real-time, interactive view of process activities.
o Htop: monitors system processes and performance in real-time.
2. Managing Processes:
o kill Command: Terminates a process using its PID (Process ID).
o pkill Command: Sends a signal to processes based on their name.
o killall Command: Similar to pkill, but can target all processes with a specific
name.
o nice and renice Commands: Adjust the priority of processes to manage their
CPU usage.
Different commands
1. Viewing Running Processes
Commands:
1. List all running processes:
ps aux - Displays detailed information about all running processes.
2. Real-time process monitoring:
top - Provides a dynamic, real-time view of system processes and their resource
usage.
3. Interactive process viewer:
htop - An enhanced version of top with a user-friendly interface (requires installation
via sudo apt install htop).
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Experiment (PART-A):
1. Run ps aux and note down the process IDs (PIDs) and commands of a few running
processes.
2. Open top and observe the real-time updates of CPU and memory usage. Press q to
exit.
3. Install htop if not already installed and run it. Explore its features, including process
sorting and searching.
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2. Managing Processes
Commands:
1. Terminate a process by PID:
kill PID - Sends the SIGTERM signal to terminate the process with the specified PID.
2. Forcefully terminate a process:
kill -9 PID - Sends the SIGKILL signal to forcefully terminate the process.
3. Terminate processes by name:
pkill process_name - Sends the SIGTERM signal to all processes with the given
name.
4. Terminate all processes by name:
killall process_name - Sends the SIGTERM signal to all processes matching the given
name.
5. Start a process with a specific priority:
nice -n 10 command - Starts the command with a niceness of 10 (lower priority).
[The nice command is used to start a process with a defined priority (from -20 to 19,
where -20 is the highest priority and 19 is the lowest).]
6. Change the priority of a running process:
renice 10 -p PID - Changes the niceness of the process with the given PID to 10.
Experiment (PART-B):
1. Open a new terminal [say Terminal-2] and create a file (fileA.txt) using cat command
with redirection (>) allowing text entry. Let the data entry in file be kept open (that is
do not press ctrl+ D to exit from cat)
2. Find the PID of this cat process using ps aux or pgrep on the previous terminal [say
Terminal-1].
3. Use kill PID to terminate the cat process gracefully. What happens in Terminal-2?
Are the fileA.txt contents updated?
4. Again start cat command to append data in the fileA.txt [on Terminal-2]
5. Find the PID for cat command and use kill -9 PID to forcefully terminate the same
process [from Terminal-1]. What happens in Terminal-2? Are the fileA.txt contents
updated?
6. On Terminal-2 start entry of text in fileA.txt again
7. On Terminal-1 test pkill by terminating processes based on their name.
8. Run a CPU-intensive command with nice to observe its lower priority and change the
priority of a running process using renice.
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