Process monitoring and control – Process Management – Linux operating system

Process monitoring and control are essential tasks in Linux for managing system resources, troubleshooting issues, and optimizing performance. Linux provides several tools and commands to monitor and control processes. Here’s an overview of process monitoring and control in Linux:

1. Monitoring Processes:
   • ps: The ps command is used to list currently running processes. It provides information such as the process ID (PID), parent process ID (PPID), CPU and memory usage, and more. Example: ps aux
   • top: The top command provides real-time monitoring of processes and system resource usage. It displays a dynamic view of processes sorted by resource consumption. Example: top
   • htop: Similar to top, htop is an interactive process viewer that provides a more user-friendly and feature-rich interface for monitoring processes. Example: htop
2. Process Control:
   • kill: The kill command is used to send signals to processes. The default signal is SIGTERM, which requests a process to gracefully terminate. Example: kill <PID>
   • pkill: The pkill command allows you to search and send signals to processes based on their names or other attributes. Example: pkill -f <pattern>
   • killall: Similar to pkill, the killall command sends signals to processes based on their names. Example: killall <process_name>
3. Process Priorities:
   • nice and renice: The nice command allows you to launch a process with a specified priority level. A lower nice value indicates higher priority. The renice command allows you to change the priority of a running process. Example: nice -n 10 <command>, renice +5 <PID>
4. Process Monitoring Utilities:
   • systemd: Systemd is a system and service manager in Linux that provides process management capabilities. It allows you to start, stop, restart, enable, disable, and monitor services. Example: systemctl start <service>
   • atop: The atop command provides advanced process and system monitoring, including historical data of resource usage, disk I/O, network activity, and more. Example: atop
5. Process Tracing and Debugging:
   • strace: The strace command is used to trace system calls and signals made by a process. It helps in understanding the behavior of a process and diagnosing issues. Example: strace <command>
   • gdb: The GNU Debugger (GDB) allows you to attach to a running process for debugging and inspecting its execution state, variables, and memory. Example: gdb -p <PID>

These tools and commands enable system administrators to effectively monitor and control processes in Linux. By monitoring resource usage, terminating or adjusting the priority of processes, and diagnosing issues through tracing and debugging, administrators can optimize system performance, troubleshoot problems, and ensure efficient resource utilization.