Make dd give a progress report.

Many of you have probably used dd before. While it runs, however, we cannot see how far it has progressed. This article explains how to view the progress of dd. $ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/demo bs=1M count=1563 1563+0 records in 1563+0 records out 1638924288 bytes (1.6 GB) copied, 15.355191 seconds, 104.4 MB/s Here is how to view its progress. Normally, dd produces output like that shown below. Use the command: $ pkill -USR1 ^dd$ together with watch, by typing the following command. $ watch -n5 pkill -USR1 ^dd$ *watch keeps running, so you cannot type additional commands. Press ctrl+c to exit. Finally, try the command and check its output. The result will look similar to the following. $ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/demo bs=1M count=1563 474+0 records in 474+0 records out 497025024 bytes (497 MB) copied, 4.06409 seconds, 122 MB/s 983+0 records in 983+0 records out 1030750208 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 9.97723 seconds, 103 MB/s 1508+0 records in 1508+0 records out 1581252608 bytes (1.6 GB) copied, 15.1398 seconds, 104 MB/s 1563+0 records in 1563+0 records out 1638924288 bytes (1.6 GB) copied, 15.6136 seconds, 105 MB/s