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Linux commands to find the number of CPU cores

nproc will just output the number of cores, nothing more. Actually, with multi-threading it counts the number of logical cores, not physical ones. So for instance, on an i7-6700, which is a quad core CPU with hyper-threading, I guess it would show 8 processors.

lscpu gives a lot more details about the CPU. It’s like, a recap of cat /proc/cpuinfo, with just one big section combining all cores. Example output:

Architecture:                    x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):                  32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:                      Little Endian
Address sizes:                   48 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s):                          8
On-line CPU(s) list:             0-7
Thread(s) per core:              2
Core(s) per socket:              4
Socket(s):                       1
NUMA node(s):                    1
Vendor ID:                       AuthenticAMD
CPU family:                      23
Model:                           49
Model name:                      AMD EPYC 7R32
Stepping:                        0
CPU MHz:                         3272.959
BogoMIPS:                        5599.72
Hypervisor vendor:               KVM
Virtualization type:             full
L1d cache:                       128 KiB
L1i cache:                       128 KiB
L2 cache:                        2 MiB
L3 cache:                        16 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s):               0-7
Vulnerability Itlb multihit:     Not affected
Vulnerability L1tf:              Not affected
Vulnerability Mds:               Not affected
Vulnerability Meltdown:          Not affected
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
Vulnerability Spectre v1:        Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2:        Mitigation; Full AMD retpoline, IBPB conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP conditional, RSB filling
Vulnerability Srbds:             Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort:   Not affected
Flags:                           fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp l
                                 m constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes
                                  xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm cmp_legacy cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch topoext ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbas
                                 e bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 clzero xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd arat npt nrip_save rdpid

cat /proc/cpuinfo, which I mentioned above, give details about each logical core. Compared to lscpu, it has some additional details, and some missing ones as well. Example partial output (I just copied the 2 last cores), from the same CPU as the previous output:

processor       : 6
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 23
model           : 49
model name      : AMD EPYC 7R32
stepping        : 0
microcode       : 0x8301034
cpu MHz         : 3253.736
cache size      : 512 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 8
core id         : 2
cpu cores       : 4
apicid          : 5
initial apicid  : 5
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 mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm cmp_legacy cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch topoext ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 clzero xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd arat npt nrip_save rdpid
bugs            : sysret_ss_attrs spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips        : 5599.72
TLB size        : 3072 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 48 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor       : 7
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 23
model           : 49
model name      : AMD EPYC 7R32
stepping        : 0
microcode       : 0x8301034
cpu MHz         : 3254.011
cache size      : 512 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 8
core id         : 3
cpu cores       : 4
apicid          : 7
initial apicid  : 7
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 mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm cmp_legacy cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch topoext ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 clzero xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd arat npt nrip_save rdpid
bugs            : sysret_ss_attrs spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips        : 5599.72
TLB size        : 3072 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 48 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Posted in Linux, published drafts.


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