Top showing : "Users 6"

Software & Operating Systems Linux
,
1

Hi all -

//I run Ubuntu 14.04 - system has only one user

According to top there are 6 users running on my system, which seems odd because I only have one user on the system. Here's some info:

  • top
    top - 12:45:48 up 13 days, 23:03, 6 users, load average: 2.71, 2.83, 2.27
    Tasks: 197 total, 2 running, 194 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie

  • w
    12:47:16 up 13 days, 23:04, 6 users, load average: 1.72, 2.55, 2.23
    USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
    cotton :0 :0 12:27 ?xdm? 1:38m 0.68s init --user
    cotton pts/6 :0 12:30 1.00s 0.18s 6.36s gnome-terminal

  • who
    cotton :0 2015-09-22 12:27 (:0)
    cotton pts/6 2015-09-22 12:30 (:0)

  • w -l
    LOGIN tty5 2015-09-08 13:43 892 id=5
    LOGIN tty6 2015-09-08 13:43 902 id=6
    LOGIN tty2 2015-09-15 13:34 26585 id=2
    LOGIN tty3 2015-09-15 13:34 26588 id=3
    LOGIN tty4 2015-09-15 13:34 26591 id=4
    LOGIN tty1 2015-09-22 12:32 28302 id=1

Additional info:

  • After logging off and going to tty only I still get 4 users in top.
  • I used all the ttys while logged in. I think I am closing them properly by typing 'exit' when done with them.

I'm just curious why there are 6 users on the machine right now.

2

Basically TOP shows users (yourself) and user processes that you start, on my system if I'm running TOP from a fresh boot it will show one user which is me, but if I start my KVM (which requires admin access to start the VM) it will then show a second user on my system, I may be wrong but I believe it is not just showing physical users that are logged in but processes/tasks that the user owns and has started. ...but I could be totally wrong.

3

Further information:

After restarting my computer, and logging in - top is showing 2 users.
Next, I started a tty (ctrl + alt + f1), logged in, typed 'exit', and pressed ctrl + alt + f7.
Ran top : Now showing 3 users logged in.

I think, possibly, I'm not properly ending my tty session and process.

@blanger Thanks for your response.

4

you need to logout of your tty's

5

Do I kill it from the terminal after 'logout' or can I do from the tty?

6

That depends like my 'w' says i have 6 users but they are all me one is running w one is upstart and 4 java running my minecraft servers

usually i type logout when I am done in a tty not exit, however it apears on my system ubuntu server 15.04 both methods log you out. of the tty

7

Its nothing to worry about, each shell you use will count as a user. open a terminal and open another terminal and youll see each count as a user. When you log out a tty it should destroy its self. what 3 users did it show logged in?