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Watch the progress of 'dd'

Terminal - Watch the progress of 'dd'
dd if=/dev/urandom of=file.img bs=4KB& pid=$!
2009-04-08 05:56:47
User: atoponce
Functions: dd
9
Up
Down
Watch the progress of 'dd'

Running this code will execute dd in the background, and you'll grab the process ID with '$!' and assign it to the 'pid' variable. Now, you can watch the progress with the following:

while true; do kill -USR1 $pid && sleep 1 && clear; done

The important thing to grasp here isn't the filename or location of your input or output, or even the block size for that matter, but the fact that you can keep an eye on 'dd' as it's running to see where you are at during its execution.

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Alternatives

There are 2 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
pv -tpreb /dev/urandom | dd of=file.img
2012-04-11 22:32:52
User: marrowsuck
Functions: dd
Tags: dd pv
7
Up
Down
Watch the progress of 'dd'

This version was mentioned in the comments. Credits go to flatcap.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
dd if=/dev/urandom of=file.img bs=4KB& pid=$!; while [[ -d /proc/$pid ]]; do kill -USR1 $pid && sleep 1 && clear; done
2011-06-24 21:49:10
User: unixmonkey14934
Functions: dd kill sleep
Tags: dd progress
1
Up
Down
Watch the progress of 'dd'

Only slightly different than previous commands. The benefit is that your "watch" should die when the dd command has completed. (Of course this would depend on /proc being available)

Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
dd if=/dev/urandom of=file.img bs=4KB& sleep 1 && pid=`pidof dd`; while [[ -d /proc/$pid ]]; do kill -USR1 $pid && sleep 10 && clear; done
2012-02-23 01:45:53
User: unixmonkey31714
Functions: dd kill sleep
Tags: dd progress progess meter
1
Up
Down
Watch the progress of 'dd'

The previously-posted one-liner didn't work for me for whatever reason, so I ended up doing this instead.

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kill -SIGUSR1 xxxx
2012-04-12 09:32:24
User: netaxiz
Functions: kill
Tags: dd pv
1
Up
Down
Watch the progress of 'dd'

run this in another terminal, were xxxx is the process ID of the running dd process.

the progress will report on the original terminal that you ran dd on

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Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

Alternatively, if you have 'pv' installed:

pv /dev/urandom | dd of=file.img bs=4KB count=1234

This will display a progress bar for fixed-size input, or just a throughput speed for unlimited things like urandom.

Comment by flatcap 218 weeks and 6 days ago

dd if=/dev/urandom |cpipe -vt| dd of=file.img

Comment by oernii 218 weeks and 6 days ago

pv: http://ivarch.com/programs/pv.shtml

cpipe: http://cpipe.berlios.de/

(for the less observant) The trick here is that sending 'dd' the USR1 signal causes it to print the latest transfer statistics.

Comment by bwoodacre 218 weeks and 6 days ago

hey thx for reminding me to create alias of this

#ddp dd_args

function ddp() { dd "$@" & pid=$! && while true; do kill -USR1 $pid && sleep 1 && clear; done ;}
Comment by professoralex 213 weeks and 5 days ago

You could use

watch -n1 "kill -USR1 $pid"

instead of the sleep and clear in a for loop.

Comment by stuart 191 weeks and 5 days ago

Well... i think oernii had it. I wouldn't call him less observant, but rather more. The kill -USR1 isn't needed, and pv does work. For example, copying a hdd

pv /dev/sda |dd of=/dev/sdb

Works perfectly

Comment by darkdragn 143 weeks and 4 days ago

Your point of view

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