NPROC(1)

📦
version 9.12 · 24 versions
, in arch rolling

🌸 NPROC(1) 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to nproc, section 1 of the manual (User Commands, the iconic tier), coming at you straight from GNU coreutils. it does literally one thing and it does it flawlessly, which is honestly main character energy. 💅

✨ NAME ✨

nproc — print the number of processing units available

like. that's it. that's the whole job. she counts your CPUs and she goes home. 👑

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

nproc [OPTION]...

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so what she actually prints is the number of processing units available to the current process — and no, that's not always the same as the number of online processors, and that distinction is the whole point, iykyk. you might be in a container, you might be capped by a quota, the universe might be limiting you. she knows.

and here's the tea: if the OMP_NUM_THREADS or OMP_THREAD_LIMIT environment variables are set, they take over. OMP_NUM_THREADS sets the minimum returned value and OMP_THREAD_LIMIT sets the maximum returned value. so yeah, OpenMP is lowkey in the driver's seat there. 🚗

  • --all — prints the number of installed processors, straight up ignoring any OpenMP environment variables, and ignoring CPU quotas too. no vibes, no limits, just raw silicon. 🔥
  • --ignore=N — if it's possible, excludes N processing units. and the result is guaranteed to be at least 1, so she will never hand you a zero, even if you ask her to subtract everything. she has standards. ✋
  • --help — displays this help and exits. classic. 🫶
  • --version — outputs version information and exits. 💖

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Written by Giuseppe Scrivano. thank you king 🫡

✨ REPORTING BUGS ✨

found a bug? do NOT suffer in silence, bestie, tell the people:

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

this is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. there is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. so like, slay, but also don't come for her if things go sideways. 💀

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

and that's the whole page, bestie — GNU coreutils 9.12, dated September 2026. go count your cores, they're gorgeous. 🦋✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from