How do I find which process is slowly eating my RAM?
Aug 11, 2026
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by John Britto
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1 min read
Quick Linux Tip #12 :
Try: watch -n 5 'ps -eo pid,user,vsz,rss,comm --sort=-rss | head -20'
Info: watch runs the command repeatedly, showing memory trends. RSS shows physical memory in KB. If a process's RSS keeps growing, you have a leak.
Examples:
$ watch -n 1 'free -m'
$ smem -tk -s rss # More accurate memory reporting
$ sudo pmap -x 1234 | tail -1 # Detailed memory map
Note: smem is more accurate than ps for shared memory. Install with apt install smem. Monitor over hours to detect slow leaks.
LinuxTeck.com
linuxteck@ubuntu:~$ watch -n 5 'ps -eo pid,user,vsz,rss,comm --sort=-rss | head -20'
Every 5.0s: ps -eo pid,user,vsz,rss,comm --sort=-rss
PID USER VSZ RSS COMMAND
3456 mysql 4823456 2345678 mysqld
2134 www 2145678 987654 apache2
5678 user 1876543 765432 chrome
4321 root 987654 543210 systemd-journal
1234 nginx 567890 234567 nginx
About John Britto
John Britto Founder & Chief-Editor @LinuxTeck. A Computer Geek and Linux Intellectual having more than 20+ years of experience in Linux and Open Source technologies.
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