grep -v grep

grep -v <**> <filename> means to display all the lines that do not match ** in the file filename.


Generally used to see the process situation,
ps -ef | grep httpd | grep -v grep
prevents the list of grep process numbers.



[root@master logs]# ps -ef|grep java|grep -v grep
root 10909 1 7 10:54 pts/3 00:00:57 /export/servers/jdk1.6.0_25/bin/java