3 Easy Methods to Find the PID of a Process in Linux Terminal

This guide intends to teach you to Find the PID of a Process in Linux Terminal. PID stands for Process IDentifier. In Linux, every running process has a unique ID which is called PID. It helps the system to track, control, and manage individual processes. You can use PIDs for starting, stopping, pausing, and monitoring processes. Also, PIDs are used for troubleshooting purposes. It allows users and administrators to identify and manage specific processes efficiently.

Now you can follow the steps below to see how you can use the Linux Commands to find your PIDs.

Best Practices To Find the PID of a Process in Linux Terminal

In this guide, we show you some useful Linux utilities to Find the PID of a Process in Linux Terminal. To do this, you can follow the steps below.

1 – Use the pgrep Command To Find the PIDs in Linux

The pgrep command is a tool used to search for processes based on their attributes and then print out the process IDs (PIDs). It allows users to find processes by specifying their names, user ownership, parent process IDs, and more.

The syntax of the pgrep command is as follows:

pgrep process-name

For example, to find Nginx PIDs, you can run:

pgrep nginx

Exmaple Output
1712
1715
1716

To find processes whose names exactly match the name, you can use the -x option:

pgrep -x process-name

2 – Use the pidof Command To Identify PIDs in Linux Terminal

The pidof command is another useful tool in Linux for identifying the process ID (PID) of a running program or service. The syntax of the pidof command is as follows:

pidof process-name

For example:

pidof nginx

Exmaple Output
1716 1715 1712

3 – List Linux PIDs with ps aux Command

The ps aux command is a powerful utility in Linux used to display information about all currently running processes in a detailed format. If you don’t know the exact name of the package, you can combine it with the grep command to find your PIDs:

ps aux | grep -i process-name

For example:

ps aux | grep -i ngin

Note: If you want to kill a process, you can check this guide on Kill a Process in Linux from Terminal.

Conclusion

At this point, you have learned to Find the PID of a Process in Linux Terminal. You can easily use Linux commands including pgrep, pidof, and ps aux to identify the PIDs in Linux. Hope you enjoy it.

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Use the arp command in Linux Networking

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