Linux Module 2 (Revision Series)

Sem 4 BCA/B.Sc. Computer Science MGU

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Process
• Refers to a program in execution.
• Made up of program instructions, data read from files other program or input
from a system.
• During it’s lifetime, it will use a lot of system resources.
• Uses CPU in the system tot run it’s instructions & system memory to hold it’s data

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Processes in Linux
• Running instance of a command.
• When you issues a command in Linux, it creates or starts a new process.
• Process is identified by it’s process ID
• Process ID is unique
• Once a process is end, another process can reuse that process ID
• While a process is running, it is associated with a particular user account & group
account.
• That account info helps to determine what system resources the process can
access.

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Process States
• Running: the process is either running or it is ready to run
• Waiting (Blocked): Process is waiting for an event or for a resources.
• Two Types of waiting processes:
• 1. Interruptible Process: can be interrupted by signals
• 2. Uninterruptible Process: are waiting directly by hardware conditions &
can’t be interrupted.
• Stopped: The process is completed. This process can be restarted
• Zombie: Halted process or dead process. This process will be terminated &
information will still be available in the process table.

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File Processing Commands
• wc
• Used to display the number of lines, words & character information stored on a file
• Syntax: wc options filename
• Options:
• -l : displays number of lines in the file
• -w: displays number of words in the file
• -c: displays number of bytes in the file
• -m : displays number of characters in the file

• Paste
• Concatenates the content of specified files into single file vertically.
• Used to merge lines of files
• Syntax: paste file1 file2
• Options:
• -d delim : use delim character as delimiter instead of a tab

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Mathematical Commands
• expr
• Used to perform arithmetic operations on integers.
• Can’t handle floating point arithmetic
• Syntax: expr expression
• bc
• Commandline utility that provides all features of simple scientific calculator
• Used to perform arithmetic operations on integers as well as on floating point numbers.
• By default performs integer division. If you required float division then set scale to the number of digits
of precision before the operation.
• factor
• Used to print prime factors of a number
• Number is given from command line or read from standard input.

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Other Commands
• nohup (no hang up)
• If user wants a process that he has executed not to die even when logged out from system, then we can
use this command
• Syntax: nohup command&
• kill
• Used to terminate a process
• Syntax: kill –signal number pid
• By default uses signal number 15 to terminate a process
• To kill a process forcefully use signal number 9 (“Sure kil”)
• ps
• Shows which process are running in a system.
• Syntax: ps options
• Results contain 4 columns.
• PID – process ID
• TTY – terminal type that user is logged into
• Time – Amount of CPU in minutes and seconds that the process is running
• CMD - name of the command that launched the process
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Other Commands
• ps
• To list all process
• Options.
• -A, -e – View all the running processes
• -T – select all processes on this terminal
• -u – to list all processes which are running for specified user.
• Who
• Used to display users who are logged on the system currently.
• Syntax: who options
• Options:
• -b : time of last system boot
• -a : list of all available output for each user on your system
• -d: displays dead processes.
• who am i – tells the username of yours

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Other Commands
• touch
• Used to create empty files
• Does not allow you to store anything in a file
• Also allows you to change the modification & access times of a file to specified time without accessing
or modifying
• Syntax: touch option filename
• Options.
• -a – changes only access time
• -m – changes only modification time.
• find
• Used to locating files which meet the search criteria.
• Syntax: find path_list selection_criteria action
• Recursively examines all files in the directory specified in path_list & matches files based on selection
criteria and takes action specified on those files

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Find command
• Selection criteria
• -name filename : selects file specified
• - user username: selects file owned by the user
• -type d: selects directories.
• Action
• -print : displays the selected files
• -delete : delete those files

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Types of Processes in Linux
1. Parent & child process
• Each process in linux has two ID numbers assigned to it. 1) Process ID 2) Parent Process ID (ppid)
• Each process has a parent process
• When a new process is created, it is a child process.
2. Zombie process
• Process whose execution is completed but still has an entry in process table.
• Usually occurs for child process
• Once parent process reads it’s child’s exit status then zombie process is eliminated from the process table.
3. Orphan Process
• Running process whose parent process has finished or terminated without waiting for the child process to terminate.
• Will be immediately adopted by special init system process once the parent process dies.
4. Daemon process
• Process which runs in background & has no controlling terminal
• Almost no user interaction is required.
• They are system-related background processes that often run with the permissions of root & services requests from
other processes.

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Process Attributes
1. Process ID : unique ID used to refer the process
2. Parent Process ID: the PID of parent process that started this
process
3. Nice number: priority number
4. Terminal: terminal which the process is connected
5. Username: owner of the process.
6. Real & effective group owner: group who owns the process

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Starting a Process
1. Foreground Process: Runs on the screen & need input from user
2. Background Process: Run in background & don’t need user inputs

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Foreground Process
• Referred as interactive processes
• Are initialized & controlled through a terminal session.
• Started by user
• While running in foreground, if program is time consuming then you
won’t be able to run other commands.

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Background Process
• Referred as non-interactive processes
• Are not connected to terminal.
• Other processes can be done in parallel
• You can run other commands
• Simplest way to start a background process is to add an ampersand
(&) at end of the command
• Eg: cp file filecopy&

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Pipes
• Form of redirection that is used in Linux.
• Used to send the output of one program to another program for further
processing.
• Uses the output of one command as input of another command
• Both process are connected using the vertical bar symbol “|”.
• Allows two or more command to combine
• Pipes are unidirectional, data flow from left to right through the pipeline
• Pipes are often used to filter, modify, or manipulate data output of one
command.
• Eg: man ls | more

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Tee command
• Reads the standard input & writes it to both the standard output & one or more
files.
• Basically breaks the output of a program so, it can be displayed & saved in a file.
• Syntax: command 1 | command 2 | tee filename

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