Find processes utilizing high memory in human readable format

ps -eo size,pid,user,command --sort -size |awk '{hr[1024**2]="GB";hr[1024]="MB";for (x=1024**3; x>=1024; x/=1024){if ($1>=x){printf ("%-6.2f %s ", $1/x, hr[x]);break}}}{printf ("%-6s %-10s ", $2, $3)}{for (x=4;x<=NF;x++){printf ("%s ",$x)} print ("\n")}'

Finding high memory usage report in human readable format.

Sample Output

1.49   GB 6457   1001       /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --lang=en-US --force-fieldtest=CacheListSize/CacheListSize_14/ConnCountImpact/conn_count_6/ConnnectBackupJobs/ConnectBackupJobsEnabled/DnsImpact/default_enabled_prefetch/DnsParallelism/parallel_default/GlobalSdch/global_enable_sdch/IdleSktToImpact/idle_timeout_10/Instant/HiddenExperimentB/Prefetch/ContentPrefetchPrerender2/PrerenderFromOmnibox/OmniboxPrerenderEnabled/PrerenderFromOmniboxHeuristic/ExactFullAlgorithm/ProxyConnectionImpact/proxy_connections_32/SpdyCwnd/cwnd10/SpdyImpact/npn_with_spdy/WarmSocketImpact/warmest_socket/ --extension-process --enable-print-preview --channel=6390.0xb9b71c60.593461523 

630.18 MB 2488   1001       /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.1.8/thunderbird-bin 

501.08 MB 3426   1001       /usr/lib/firefox-3.6.3/firefox-bin 

272.55 MB 11897  1001       /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser

By: rockon

2012-11-27 04:29:08

awk ps memory usage ps processes, high memory usage

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What Others Think

won't work for me. (GNU bash, version 4.2.24 on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS) awk: line 1: syntax error at or near * awk: line 1: syntax error at or near * awk: line 1: extra ')' awk: line 1: syntax error at or near { awk: line 1: syntax error at or near }

olekhy · 618 weeks and 3 days ago

I tried on Ubuntu 11.10 and got same error. Its working for me on Ubuntu 10.04 though the awk version seems same on 10.04 and 11.10 Below command should work for you.

ps -eo size,pid,user,command | sort -rn | head -5 | awk '{ hr[1024^2]="GB"; hr[1024]="MB"; for (x=1024^3; x>=1024; x/=1024) { if ($1>=x) { printf ("%-6.2f %s ", $1/x, hr[x]); break } } } { printf ("%-6s %-10s ", $2, $3) } { for ( x=4 ; x<=NF ; x++ ) { printf ("%s ",$x) } print ("\n") }'

rockon · 618 weeks and 3 days ago

I tried on Ubuntu 11.10 and got same error. Its working for me on Ubuntu 10.04 though the awk version seems same on 10.04 and 11.10 Below command should work for you.

ps -eo size,pid,user,command | sort -rn | head -5 | awk '{ hr[1024^2]="GB"; hr[1024]="MB"; for (x=1024^3; x>=1024; x/=1024) { if ($1>=x) { printf ("%-6.2f %s ", $1/x, hr[x]); break } } } { printf ("%-6s %-10s ", $2, $3) } { for ( x=4 ; x<=NF ; x++ ) { printf ("%s ",$x) } print ("\n") }'

rockon · 618 weeks and 3 days ago

I tried on Ubuntu 11.10 and got same error. Its working for me on Ubuntu 10.04 though the awk version seems same on 10.04 and 11.10 Below command should work for you.

ps -eo size,pid,user,command | sort -rn | head -5 | awk '{ hr[1024^2]="GB"; hr[1024]="MB"; for (x=1024^3; x>=1024; x/=1024) { if ($1>=x) { printf ("%-6.2f %s ", $1/x, hr[x]); break } } } { printf ("%-6s %-10s ", $2, $3) } { for ( x=4 ; x<=NF ; x++ ) { printf ("%s ",$x) } print ("\n") }'

rockon · 618 weeks and 3 days ago

error: can not use output modifiers with user-defined output Usage: ps [options] Try 'ps --help ' or 'ps --help ' for additional help text. For more details see ps(1).

malathion · 618 weeks and 2 days ago

@malathion: what os version?

rockon · 618 weeks ago

tnx this one is ok! ps -eo size,pid,user,command | sort -rn | head -5 | awk '{ hr[1024^2]="GB"; hr[1024]="MB"; for (x=1024^3; x>=1024; x/=1024) { if ($1>=x) { printf ("%-6.2f %s ", $1/x, hr[x]); break } } } { printf ("%-6s %-10s ", $2, $3) } { for ( x=4 ; x

olekhy · 618 weeks ago

rahimhh21 · 110 weeks and 2 days ago

Perfecthomepugs · 101 weeks and 2 days ago

pugpuppies95 · 63 weeks and 1 day ago

donperi1 · 55 weeks and 3 days ago

yeneba6574 · 15 weeks and 5 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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