Managing Linux Processes

A process is a running program with a PID, owner and state. Managing processes is core admin knowledge.

View

ps aux
ps aux | grep nginx
top          # live view

Kill

kill 1234        # SIGTERM: graceful
kill -9 1234     # SIGKILL: immediate
pkill nginx      # by name

Signals

SIGTERM (15) allows cleanup, SIGKILL (9) cannot be caught. SIGINT (2) is Ctrl+C; SIGHUP (1) often triggers config reload.

Related: Linux Basics · systemd Explained