- 3 Ways to check CPU Cores in Linux
- Methods to get number of CPU cores in Linux
- Understanding CPU cores in Linux
- Understanding CPU cores and hyper threading in Linux
- Understanding threads per core in Linux
- Check CPU cores with lscpu command in Linux
- Check CPU cores from /proc/cpuinfo File in Linux
- Check CPU cores with dmidecode command in Linux
- How to find the number of CPU cores including virtual?
- 6 Answers 6
- How to know number of cores of a system in Linux?
- 12 Answers 12
3 Ways to check CPU Cores in Linux
In this blog post, we will discuss 3 different ways to check the number of cpu cores in Linux. This is useful information to have if you are trying to optimize your system for performance.
Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, so be sure to read through all of them before choosing the one that is best for you. Let’s get started!
Methods to get number of CPU cores in Linux
The following commands can be used to check the number of CPU cores in Linux.
- cat /proc/cpuinfo
- lscpu
- sudo dmidecode -t 4
- nproc
- hwinfo
- getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN
Understanding CPU cores in Linux
When you are trying to optimize your system for performance, it is important to understand the concept of CPU cores. In Linux, a CPU core is essentially a processor.
This means that, if you have multiple CPU cores, your system can process multiple tasks at the same time. This can result in a significant increase in performance.
But the number of CPU cores is not the same as the number of processors.
Understanding CPU cores and hyper threading in Linux
Hyper threading is a feature that was first introduced in Intel processors. It allows a single CPU core to process multiple tasks at the same time by creating virtual cores.
This can be useful if you are trying to optimize your system for performance, as it can increase the number of tasks that can be processed simultaneously.
However, it is important to note that not all processors support hyper threading.
Understanding threads per core in Linux
In Linux, threads per core is a way of measuring the number of threads that can be processed simultaneously on a single CPU core. This is different than the number of CPU cores, as it measures the number of tasks that can be processed at the same time. There are 2 threads per core in most of the current CPU architecture.
- The number of CPU cores = sockets * Core per socket
- The number of vCPU = CPU cores * threads per core
Check CPU cores with lscpu command in Linux
The best way to check the number of CPU cores in Linux is using the lscpu command. Open the terminal and run this command lscpu. It gives you a lot of information about cpu, including the number of cores, the vendor_id, model name etc.
echo «Cores = $(( $(lscpu | awk ‘/^Socket\(s\)/< print $2 >‘) * $(lscpu | awk ‘/^Core\(s\) per socket/< print $4 >‘) ))»
It will list the number of CPU cores on your system.
The number of CPU cores = sockets * Core per socket
sockets=$(lscpu | awk '/^Socket\(s\)/< print $2 >') Core per socket=$(lscpu | awk '/^Core\(s\) per socket/< print $4 >')
We can use this command to get the number of CPU cores.
echo "Cores = $(( $(lscpu | awk '/^Socket\(s\)/< print $2 >') * $(lscpu | awk '/^Core\(s\) per socket/< print $4 >') ))"
The lscpu command displays either one single CPU family or all families detected by querying sysfs (on Linux kernels with CONFIG_SYSFS). It supports Intel x86, AMD Family 16h/18h, and ARM processors.
In the following examples, the number of CPU cores is 1 * 2=2
$ lscpu Architecture: x86_64 CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit Byte Order: Little Endian CPU(s): 4 On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3 Thread(s) per core: 2 Core(s) per socket: 2 Socket(s): 1 NUMA node(s): 1 Vendor ID: GenuineIntel CPU family: 6 Model: 85
From this example, we can get that the number of CPU cores are 2 * 8 =16
$ lscpu | grep -E '^Thread|^Core|^Socket|^CPU\(' CPU(s): 32 Thread(s) per core: 2 Core(s) per socket: 8 Socket(s): 2
Check CPU cores from /proc/cpuinfo File in Linux
Another way to check the number of cpu cores in Linux is by looking at the /proc/cpuinfo file. Open the terminal and run this command: cat /proc/cpuinfo. It will list a lot of information about the cpu, including the number of CPU cores on your system.
This file also contains CPU vendor_id, model name etc. To view it, just type the following command into your terminal:
cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 85 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8259CL CPU @ 2.50GHz stepping : 7 microcode : 0x500320a cpu MHz : 3109.590 cache size : 36608 KB physical id : 0
check the physical number of CPU:
cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep "physical id"|sort |uniq|wc -l
cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep "processor"|wc -l
Check CPU cores with dmidecode command in Linux
dmidecode command can be used to check the number of cpu cores in Linux. It is a command-line tool to retrieve device data that the Linux kernel exposes through MCU. To run it, just type the following command into your terminal:
$ dmidecode -t processor | grep "Core Count"
This command is very useful if you want to get more information about your hardware info, such as CPU or memory.
dmidecode --type processor dmidecode --type memory
As you can see, there are three different ways to check the number of cpu cores in Linux. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, so be sure to choose the one that is best for you.
If you want a simple way to check the number of cpu cores, then I recommend using the /proc/cpuinfo file. If you want more information about your system’s cpu, then I recommend using the lscpu command. Whichever method you choose, be sure to use it to optimize your system for performance. Thanks for reading
David is a Cloud & DevOps Enthusiast. He has years of experience as a Linux engineer. He had working experience in AMD, EMC. He likes Linux, Python, bash, and more. He is a technical blogger and a Software Engineer. He enjoys sharing his learning and contributing to open-source.
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How to find the number of CPU cores including virtual?
How do I find out the number of cores my CPU has, including virtual cores (hyper threading cores) using the command line?
6 Answers 6
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor | wc -l
To check the number of cores !
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'core id' core id : 0 core id : 1
Or lscpu will show you all output:
lscpu Architecture: i686 CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit Byte Order: Little Endian CPU(s): 2 On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1 Thread(s) per core: 1 Core(s) per socket: 2 Socket(s): 1 Vendor ID: GenuineIntel CPU family: 15 Model: 4 Stepping: 7 CPU MHz: 2792.992 BogoMIPS: 5585.98 L1d cache: 16K L2 cache: 1024K
nproc is also useful in scripts depending on the number of cores available to it. E.g. make -j$(nproc) .
To add to the existing answers, you can determine information about Intel’s HyperThreading by looking at the «siblings» line in /proc/cpuinfo. The example below is from a 2 socket machine. It shows the CPU has 6 cores but 12 «siblings». On Intel CPUs this means HyperThreading is enabled and there are 6 physical cores.
processor : 23 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 62 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2430 v2 @ 2.50GHz stepping : 4 microcode : 0x428 cpu MHz : 1599.707 cache size : 15360 KB physical id : 1 siblings : 12 core id : 5 cpu cores : 6 apicid : 43 initial apicid : 43 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm ida arat xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase smep erms bogomips : 5005.20 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management:
dmidecode is also useful for determining what hardware a Linux system is running on.
How to know number of cores of a system in Linux?
I wanted to find out how many cores my system has, so I searched the same question in Google. I got some commands such as the lscpu command. When I tried this command, it gave me the following result:
$ lscpu Architecture: x86_64 CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit Byte Order: Little Endian CPU(s): 4 On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3 Thread(s) per core: 1 Core(s) per socket: 4 Socket(s): 1 NUMA node(s): 1 Vendor ID: GenuineIntel CPU family: 6 Model: 23 Stepping: 10 CPU MHz: 1998.000 BogoMIPS: 5302.48 Virtualization: VT-x L1d cache: 32K L1i cache: 32K L2 cache: 2048K NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-3
Which of those indicates cores of a Linux system?
Is there any other command to tell the number of cores, or am I assuming it is completely wrong?
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@สมหวังแนวหน้า kind of a nitpick, but the the grep arg should be processor , not precessor , correct? . Thanks for the help!
12 Answers 12
To get a complete picture you need to look at the number of threads per core, cores per socket and sockets. If you multiply these numbers you will get the number of CPUs on your system.
CPUs = Threads per core X cores per socket X sockets
CPUs are what you see when you run htop (these do not equate to physical CPUs).
Here is an example from a desktop machine:
$ lscpu | grep -E '^Thread|^Core|^Socket|^CPU\(' CPU(s): 8 Thread(s) per core: 2 Core(s) per socket: 4 Socket(s): 1
$ lscpu | grep -E '^Thread|^Core|^Socket|^CPU\(' CPU(s): 32 Thread(s) per core: 2 Core(s) per socket: 8 Socket(s): 2
The output of nproc corresponds to the CPU count from lscpu . For the desktop machine above this should match the 8 CPU(s) reported by lscpu :
The output of /proc/cpuinfo should match this information, for example on the desktop system above we can see there are 8 processors (CPUs) and 4 cores (core id 0-3):
$ grep -E 'processor|core id' /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 core id : 0 processor : 1 core id : 0 processor : 2 core id : 1 processor : 3 core id : 1 processor : 4 core id : 2 processor : 5 core id : 2 processor : 6 core id : 3 processor : 7 core id : 3
The cpu cores reported by /proc/cpuinfo corresponds to the Core(s) per socket reported by lscpu . For the desktop machine above this should match the 4 Core(s) per socket reported by lscpu:
$ grep -m 1 'cpu cores' /proc/cpuinfo cpu cores : 4
To specifically answer your question you tell how many cores you have by multiplying the number of cores you have per socket by the number of sockets you have.
Cores = Cores per socket X Sockets
For the example systems above the desktop has 4 cores:
$ echo "Cores = $(( $(lscpu | awk '/^Socket\(s\)/< print $2 >') * $(lscpu | awk '/^Core\(s\) per socket/< print $4 >') ))" Cores = 4
$ echo "Cores = $(( $(lscpu | awk '/^Socket\(s\)/< print $2 >') * $(lscpu | awk '/^Core\(s\) per socket/< print $4 >') ))" Cores = 16
Another useful utility is dmidecode which outputs per socket information. In the case of the server system listed above we expect to see 8 cores per socket and 16 threads per socket:
$ sudo dmidecode -t 4 | grep -E 'Socket Designation|Count' Socket Designation: CPU1 Core Count: 8 Thread Count: 16 Socket Designation: CPU2 Core Count: 8 Thread Count: 16
The lscpu command has a number of useful options that you may like to check out, for example:
$ lscpu --all --extended $ lscpu --all --parse=CPU,SOCKET,CORE | grep -v '^#'
See man lscpu for details.
- You need to be aware of sockets, cores and threads
- You need to be careful of the term CPU as it means different things in different contexts