nproc

Linux · Processes · reference only

What it does

Prints the number of processing units (CPUs) available to the current process.

Syntax

nproc [opciones]

Options and parameters

• --all

  Prints all installed CPUs, even if they are not available to the process.

• --ignore=N

  Subtracts N CPUs from the result.

• --help

  Shows help and exits.

• --version

  Shows the version and exits.

Usage examples

• nproc

  Shows how many CPUs the current process can use.

• nproc --all

  Shows all the CPUs of the machine.

• nproc --ignore=1

  Leaves one CPU free for the rest of the system.

• make -j"$(nproc)"

  Compiles using as many parallel jobs as there are CPUs.

Notes and common mistakes

• The result counts logical threads: with hyper-threading it can be twice the physical cores.

Related commands

• at
• bg
• crontab
• fg
• jobs
• kill