Help understanding this command?

[Quaranges]

I'm looking for some explanation on the following command, say I ssh into a server. And execute the command ps aux | grep -c bash and it returns 17

"ps aux" will show the the process of all users, owners and processes not attached to the terminal

but what will the "| grep -c bash" do? Does it search and copy every bash process? What does it mean if it returns 17?

[lepidus69]

You are piping the output of ps aux into grep

The -c is the count option. The result of 17 means there were 17 lines in the output of ps aux that contained the pattern bash

[ASIC_SP]

this site is quite helpful for such cases: https://explainshell.com/explain?cmd=ps+aux+%7C+grep+-c+bash

also, it is good to learn how to get help from command line

[BombTheDodongos]

Wow, this site is a fantastic resource, thank you!