Find Processes Consuming Much CPU Time On Unix and Linux

Using the ps command you can find the processes that are consuming much CPU time on Unix and Linux machines.

$ ps -e -o pcpu -o pid -o user -o args | sort -k 1 | tail -21r

This command will display the top 20 CPU users on the system and below is the output of this command:

%CPU PID USER COMMAND
65.1 4789 oracle ora_dbwr_TESTDB
8.5 4793 oracle ora_lgwr_TESTDB
2.4 6206 oracle oracleTESTDB (LOCAL=NO)
0.1 4797 oracle ora_smon_TESTDB
0.1 6207 oracle oracleTESTDB (LOCAL=NO)

The PID column from the ps output you can match it with the SPID column on the V$PROCESS dictionary view to provide more information on the process by this query:

SELECT A.USERNAME,
A.OSUSER,
A.PROGRAM,
SPID,
SID,
A.SERIAL#
FROM V$SESSION A, V$PROCESS B
WHERE A.PADDR = B.ADDR AND SPID = '&pid';