Understanding Linux Processes from the Scratch Part-2

In Our Last article “Understanding Linux Processes from the Scratch Part-1” we have discussed about Linux Process and listing of linux process via different command like ps, top, htop & atop.

In this post we will discuss more about the Linux Process like

• Determining Processes by Ownership
• Process States
• Process Priority
• Listing Open Files

Determining Processes by Ownership

Processes can be listed by their ownership or group membership. The pgrep command is used for this purpose. For example, to list all the processes owned by root, use any of the following:

# ps -U root

# pgrep -U root

The first command lists PID, TTY, Time, and process name for all the running processes owned by the root user, while the pgrep command only lists the PIDs. With the -G option, both commands list all the processes owned by the specified group.

Example : List all the process owned by nextstep4it user.

nextstep4it@localhost:~$ ps -U nextstep4it
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 2770 ?        00:00:00 gnome-keyring-d
 2772 ?        00:00:00 init
 2857 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent
 2862 ?        00:00:03 dbus-daemon
 2870 ?        00:00:00 upstart-event-b
 2875 ?        00:00:00 window-stack-br
 2885 ?        00:00:00 upstart-file-br
 2887 ?        00:00:01 upstart-dbus-br
................................................

Process States

After a process is spawned, it does not run continuously. It may be in a non-running condition for a while or waiting for some other process to feed it with information so that it can continue to run.

There are five process states and each process is in one state at any given time. These states are running, sleeping, waiting, stopped, and zombie, and are explained below:

• The running state determines that the process is currently being executed by the system CPU.
• The sleeping state shows that the process is currently waiting for input from a user or another process.
• The waiting state means that the process has received the input it has been waiting for and it is now ready to run as soon as its turn arrives.
• The stopped state indicates that the process is currently halted and will not run even when its turn comes, unless it is sent a signal.
• The zombie state designates that the process is dead. A zombie process exists in the process table just as any other process entry, but takes up no resources. The entry for a zombie process is retained until the parent process permits it to die. A zombie process is also called a defunct process.

Process Niceness & How to Set it

The priority of a process (niceness) is determined using the nice value. The system assigns a nice value to a process at initiation to establish a priority. There are 40 nice values with -20 being the highest and +19 the lowest. Most system-started processes use the default nice value of 0. A child process inherits the nice value of its parent process.

Use the ps command and specify the -l option to determine the niceness of running processes. See the associated nicenesses for each process under the NI column:

nextstep4it@localhost:~$ ps -efl
F S UID        PID  PPID  C PRI  NI ADDR SZ WCHAN  STIME TTY          TIME CMD
4 S root         1     0  0  80   0 -  8536 poll_s Feb15 ?        00:00:02 /sbin/init
1 S root         2     0  0  80   0 -     0 kthrea Feb15 ?        00:00:00 [kthreadd]
1 S root         3     2  0  80   0 -     0 smpboo Feb15 ?        00:00:03 [ksoftirqd/0]
1 S root         5     2  0  60 -20 -     0 worker Feb15 ?        00:00:00 [kworker/0:0H]
1 S root         7     2  0  80   0 -     0 rcu_gp Feb15 ?        00:00:07 [rcu_sched]
1 S root         8     2  0  80   0 -     0 rcu_no Feb15 ?        00:00:12 [rcuos/0]
1 S root         9     2  0  80   0 -     0 rcu_no Feb15 ?        00:00:03 [rcuos/1]
1 S root        10     2  0  80   0 -     0 rcu_no Feb15 ?        00:00:04 [rcuos/2]
......................................................

To determine the default niceness, use the nice command without any options or arguments:

nextstep4it@localhost:~$ nice
0

A different priority may be assigned to a program or command at its startup. For example, to run the top command at a lower priority of +2:

nextstep4it@localhost:~$ nice -2 top

Use the ps command with the -l option, or view the output of the top command, and validate the niceness of the process. It should be +2.
To run the same program at a higher priority with the niceness of -2, specify the value with a pair of dashes:

# nice --2 top

Verify the new value with the ps command or view the output of the top command. It should be -2.

Altering Niceness of a Running Process

The niceness of a running program may be altered using the renice command. For example, to change the nice value of top while it is running from -2 to -5, specify the PID (11908) with the renice command:

nextstep4it@localhost:~$ sudo renice -5 11908
11908 (process ID) old priority 2, new priority -5

To alter the nice values of all the processes owned by members of a particular group, use the -g option with renice. Similarly, to alter the nice values of all the processes owned by a particular user, use the -u option with it. Run the renice command without any options to view its usage.

Listing Open Files

A file is opened when the process or program stored in it is executed and closed when it is no longer required or the associated process or program has terminated. To determine the information such as which files are open, which processes are using them, and who the owners are, the lsof (list open files) command is used. Without any options, this command displays a list of all open files.

nextstep4it@localhost:~# lsof
COMMAND     PID   TID            USER   FD      TYPE             DEVICE  SIZE/OFF       NODE NAME
init          1                  root  cwd       DIR                8,1      4096          2 /
init          1                  root  rtd       DIR                8,1      4096          2 /
init          1                  root  txt       REG                8,1    265848    3801191 /sbin/init
.................................................................

The command generated nine columns in the output; these are listed and explained in the below table :