Show Processes Command

If a router or a switch device is suffering from high CPU usage, we use the "show processes" command to view all running processes and identifying the cause of problem. This command is give you a list of active process, along with corresponding process ID, priority value, CPU time, number of times invoked, and other information's.

Below is an example and output of this command invoked on a Cisco router:

R1#show processes
CPU utilization five seconds: 0%/0%; one minutes: 0%; five minute: 0%
PID QTy PC Runtime (ms) Invoke uSecs Stack TTY Process
1 Csp 602F3cF0 0 1627 0 2600/3000 0 Load Meter
2 Lwe 60C5BB00 4 136 29 5572/6000 0 CEF Scanner
3 Lst 602DA0F8 1676 837 2002 5740/6000 0 Check heaps
4 Cwe 602DU8F8 0 1 0 5568/6000 0 Chunk Manager
5 Cwe 602DFNE8 0 1 0 5592/6000 0 Pool Manager
6 Mst 60251S38 0 2 0 5560/6000 0 Timers
7 Mwe 600D4U40 0 2 0 5568/6000 0 Serial Backgrou
8 Mwe 6034B818 0 1 0 2584/3000 0 OIR Handler
9 Mwe 603FB3C8 0 1 0 5612/6000 0 IPC Zone Manage
10 Mwe 603AA1A0 0 8124 0 5488/6000 0 IPC Periodic Ti
11 Mwe 603FS220 0 9 0 4884/6000 0 IPC Seat Manage
12 Lwe 60406918 124 2003 61 5300/6000 0 ARP Input
13 Mwe 60581138 0 1 0 5760/6000 0 HC Counter Time

The first line of the output shows that the CPU utilization for the last 5 second, 1 minute, and 5 minute. below are descriptions of other fields in the output:

• PID – the Process ID.
• Q – Process queue priority values. Possible values are: C (critical), H (high), M (medium), and L (low).
• Ty – scheduler test (status) values. Possible values are: * (current running), E (waiting for event), S (ready to run, voluntarily relinquished processor), rd (ready to run, wakeup conditions occur), we (waiting for event), sa (sleeping until absolute time), si (sleeping for time interval), sp (sleeping for a time interval (alternate call), st(sleeping until a timer expire), hg (hung; process will never execute again), xx (dead: process has terminated, but has not yet been delete).
• PC – current program counter.
• Runtime – CPU time process has used.
• Invoked – number of time the process has invoked.
• microSecs – CPU time for each processes invocation.
• Stack – low water mark and Total stack space available.
• TTY – terminal controls the process.
• Process – name of the process.