+++
title = "Linux: HOWTO get the number of CPUs"
date = 2013-11-13T12:13:04+00:00
[taxonomies]
tags = ["linux", "fedora"]
+++
```console
$ getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN
```
returns the number of CPUs online.

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Internally it is parsing
`/sys/devices/system/cpu/online`, which can have the contents: `0-3,5,7-9`.

Better let getconf [do all the counting for you](https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob;f=sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/getsysstats.c#l127).

This is very useful, if you want to optimize the number of threads.