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Systems & Data Center · Foundational

ps

A Linux command that reports a snapshot of current processes with details such as PID, user, CPU and memory usage.

Definition

ps aux (BSD style) or ps -ef (System V style) list all processes. Custom columns can be selected with -o, and output is commonly piped to grep or sorted.

Example

ps aux --sort=-%mem | head shows the top memory-consuming processes.

Exam tip

ps is a one-time snapshot; top and htop give continuously updating views.

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