How do i perform a search of ubuntu operating system processes?

sorangutan

We mostly use something like the following to look for active process.

ps -ef | grep apache

Another way of doing searching of active processes is using the pgrep command.

Using the following process as an example.

redis     1288     1  0 03:04 ?        00:00:03 /usr/bin/redis-server

Search for redis as the command. Returns single process id.

$ pgrep redis
 1456

-l option

Search for redis as the command and list it. You can see the actual command is not redis but redis-server.

$ pgrep -l redis
1456 redis-server

-x option

Be more specific search and only search for redis as the command. There is no command called redis so nothing is listed.

$ pgrep -lx redis

However if you search for redis-server, it will exactly match that command.

$ pgrep -lx redis-server
1456 redis-server

-f option

Search for the string redis anywhere in the process list. It finds redis in more than one process

$ pgrep -fl redis
777 runsv
807 svlogd
1185 runsv
1227 svlogd
1288 redis-server

-a option

Sometimes listing the entire command line is more useful.

$ pgrep -fla redis
777 runsv redis_lb
807 svlogd -tt /var/log/opscode/redis_lb
1185 runsv redis
1227 /opt/chef-manage/embedded/bin/svlogd -tt /var/log/chef-manage/redis
1288 /usr/bin/redis-server 10.50.25.15:6379