Linux Tutorials: Types of Process in Linux

There are five types of Process in Linux

1. Parent process: The process created by the user on the terminal. All processes have a parent process, If it was created directly by user then the parent process will be the kernel process.

2. Child process: The process created by another process (by its parent process). All child processes have a parent process.

The example is given above, the process having PID 28500(last row) is a child process of the process having PID 26544.

3. Orphan process: Sometimes when the parent gets executed before its own child process then the child process becomes an orphan process. The orphan process have “Init” process (PID 0) as their PPID (parent process ID)

4. Zombie process: The processes which are already dead but shows up in process status is called Zombie process. Zombie processes have Zero CPU consumption.

5. Daemon process: These are system-related processes that run in the background. A Daemon process can be recognized if it has “?” in its TTY field (6^th column)

Rajesh Kumar

I’m Rajesh Kumar, a DevOps, SRE, DevSecOps, Cloud, and Platform Engineering expert passionate about sharing practical knowledge, real-world experiences, and industry best practices. I have worked at Cotocus and regularly write about technology, travel, investing, health, product reviews, and digital marketing through my various platforms.

I publish technical articles at DevOps School, travel stories at Holiday Landmark, stock market insights at Stocks Mantra, health and fitness guidance at My Medic Plus, product reviews at TrueReviewNow, and SEO and digital marketing strategies at Wizbrand.