How to get only process ID in specify process name in linux?

regex linux shell redhat

101,989

Solution 1

You can use:

ps -ef | grep '[j]ava'

Or if pgrep is available then better to use:

pgrep -f java

Solution 2

You can pipe your output to awk to print just the PID. For example:

ps -ef | grep nginx | awk '{print $2}'
9439

Solution 3

Use this: ps -C <name> -o pid=

Solution 4

This command ignore grep process, and just return PID:

ps -ef | grep -v grep | grep java | awk '{print $2}'

Solution 5

why not just pidof ?

pidof <process_name>

it will return a list of pids matching the process name

https://linux.die.net/man/8/pidof

View more solutions

101,989

openquestion

Updated on July 24, 2020

Comments

openquestion almost 4 years
How to get only the process ID for a specified process name in linux?
```
ps -ef|grep java    
test 31372 31265  0 13:41 pts/1    00:00:00 grep java
```
Based on the process id I will write some logic. So how do I get only the process id for a specific process name.

Sample program:
```
PIDS= ps -ef|grep java
if [ -z "$PIDS" ]; then
echo "nothing"
else
mail [email protected]
fi
```
Scott Prive almost 8 years

Why is this voted down? Not only does it seem to work, but does so using the desired command ps, and no pipe filters. In my case, I couldn't use pipes (reasons..) so this was a lifesaver. You could spend a whole day reading the man page for PS... thanks @ventsyv
ikaerom about 7 years

Maybe because it's not extremely portable, but then again the other solutions aren't either, and the original question was tagged with Redhat Linux. Just happened to see a commit by one of my engineers who needed to have a portable way to detect a specific java process on OSX, RHEL Linux and AIX, and this is what they came up with: ps -A -o pid,args | grep \[j]ava.
sashaboulouds almost 5 years

Clean and quick on Ubuntu 16.04
Admin over 4 years

Shorter: ps -ef | grep '[j]ava' | awk '{print $2}'
рüффп almost 4 years

works as long you don't have multiple instance (e.g. java)
рüффп almost 4 years

I use this to get the PID. Be careful when using the output as a variable, a | tr -d '\n' must be added at the end.
рüффп almost 4 years

Works well, hoverver if you use the output as a variable, a | tr -d '\n' must be added at the end of the command.
DollyShukla over 3 years

Great answer pgrep -f java . It can be used to get PID only.
Gilberto Treviño about 3 years

It is a program that can be used to select particular records in a file and perform operations upon them. It is so extensive that you can even write some programs with it. AWK Documentation
dur over 2 years

Your first answer doesn't return only the pid, it returns all informations (on Ubuntu). BTW: Could you explain, what the brackets do? II couldn't find a doc for it.
anubhava over 2 years

Square brackets are used to exclude grep process from ps output
Arkham Angel over 2 years

On busybox v1.24.1 , this worked for me: ps | grep -v grep | grep cli | awk '{print $1}'
Arkham Angel over 2 years

And this: ps | awk '$NF ~ /cli/ {print $1}'
Arthur Bowers about 2 years

Thanks for this comment, the ignore grep processes was a nice addition.