linux check process memory usage code example

Example 1: what process consuming RAM

ps -o pid,user,%mem,command ax | sort -b -k3 -r

Example 2: how to check which process is using more memory in linux

ps aux --sort=-%mem | head

Example 3: linux show current memory usage

free
#------------------------------------------------------------
#total	Total installed memory
#used	Memory currently in use by running processes (used= total – free – buff/cache)
#free	Unused memory (free= total – used – buff/cache)
#shared	Memory shared by multiple processes
#buffers	Memory reserved by the OS to allocate as buffers when process need them
#cached	Recently used files stored in RAM
#buff/cache	Buffers + Cache
#available	Estimation of how much memory is available for starting new applications, without swapping.