2.4Process Management

Understanding processes helps you debug test infrastructure issues: "Why won't my test server start?" often leads to "something else is using that port."

Viewing Processes

# List running processes
ps aux
# USER  PID  %CPU %MEM  COMMAND
# qa    1234  2.1  1.5  node server.js
# qa    5678  0.5  0.8  npx playwright test

# Filter processes by name
ps aux | grep node
ps aux | grep playwright

# Interactive process viewer (like task manager)
top

# More user-friendly alternative (may need to install)
htop

Process Details

# See detailed info about a specific process
ps -p 1234 -o pid,ppid,user,%cpu,%mem,command

# See all processes in a tree (parent-child relationships)
ps auxf

# See environment variables of a running process
cat /proc/1234/environ | tr '\0' '\n'