Hands-on Lab·Red Hat Certified System Administrator
Process Discovery and Termination
One objective covering both halves: finding CPU and memory-intensive processes and killing them. Real load is generated so the numbers are real, and a process that traps SIGTERM is used to show why `kill` sometimes appears to do nothing and what to do about it.
Operating Running Systems Guide 25 of 67 Beginner
- OSRHEL 10.0 (Coughlan)
- Kernel6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0
- dnf4.20.0
- Flatpak1.16.0
- TimeAbout 14 min
- Reviewed23 August 2026
Written against the versions above. `ps` accepts both BSD options (`ps aux`) and UNIX options (`ps -ef`). They are not interchangeable and mixing them silently changes the meaning - `ps aux` and `ps -aux` are different requests. Pick one style.
| Server Name | IP Address | OS | Roles | CPU | RAM | HDD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RHCSA-A01 | 192.168.0.31 | RHEL 10.0 (Coughlan) | Practice node (graded) - spare /dev/sda | 2 Core | 4 GB | 50 GB + 15 GB |
Before you start
- A sudo-capable account.
- The session starts CPU-burning processes and kills them all, each with its own timeout as a safety net.
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What is running
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Finding the heaviest
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Some load to find
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Signals, and the one that cannot be refused
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Finding processes by owner