.\" $OpenBSD: ps.1,v 1.70 2009/02/08 17:33:02 jmc Exp $ .\" $NetBSD: ps.1,v 1.16 1996/03/21 01:36:28 jtc Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)ps.1 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/18/94 .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: February 8 2009 $ .Dt PS 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm ps .Nd display process status .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm ps .Sm off .Op Fl aCcehjkLlmrSTuvwx .Sm on .Op Fl M Ar core .Op Fl N Ar system .Op Fl O Ar fmt .Op Fl o Ar fmt .Op Fl p Ar pid .Op Fl t Ar tty .Op Fl U Ar username .Op Fl W Ar swap .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility displays information about active processes. When given no options, .Nm prints information about processes of the current user that have a controlling terminal. .Pp The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (and for even more control, see the .Fl L , .Fl O , and .Fl o options). The default output format includes, for each process, the process's ID, controlling terminal, CPU time (including both user and system time), state, and associated command. .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl a Display information about other users' processes as well as your own. .It Fl C Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a .Dq raw CPU calculation that ignores .Dq resident time (this normally has no effect). .It Fl c Do not display full command with arguments, but only the executable name. This may be somewhat confusing; for example, all .Xr sh 1 scripts will show as .Dq sh . .It Fl e Display the environment as well. .It Fl h Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one header per page of information. .It Fl j Print information associated with the following keywords: user, pid, ppid, pgid, sess, jobc, state, tt, time, and command. .It Fl k Also display information about kernel threads. .It Fl L List the set of available keywords. This option should not be specified with other options. .It Fl l Display information associated with the following keywords: uid, pid, ppid, cpu, pri, nice, vsz, rss, wchan, state, tt, time, and command. .It Fl M Ar core Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core instead of the running kernel. .It Fl m Sort by memory usage, instead of by start time ID. .It Fl N Ar system Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the running kernel. .It Fl O Ar fmt Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified, after the process ID, in the default information display. Keywords may be appended with an equals sign .Pq Sq = and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header. .It Fl o Ar fmt Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified. Keywords may be appended with an equals sign .Pq Sq = and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header. .It Fl p Ar pid Display information associated with the specified process ID. .It Fl r Sort by current CPU usage, instead of by start time ID. .It Fl S Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited children to their parent process. .It Fl T Display information about processes attached to the device associated with the standard input. .It Fl t Ar tty Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal device. .It Fl U Ar username Display the processes belonging to the specified .Ar username . .It Fl u Display information associated with the following keywords: user, pid, %cpu, %mem, vsz, rss, tt, state, start, time, and command. The .Fl u option implies the .Fl r option. .It Fl v Display information associated with the following keywords: pid, state, time, sl, re, pagein, vsz, rss, lim, tsiz, %cpu, %mem, and command. The .Fl v option implies the .Fl m option. .It Fl W Ar swap When not using the running kernel, extract swap information from the specified file. .It Fl w Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default, which is the window size. If the .Fl w option is specified more than once, .Nm will use as many columns as necessary without regard for window size. .It Fl x Display information about processes without controlling terminals. .El .Pp .Ex -std ps .Sh KEYWORDS The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their meanings. Several of them have aliases, which are also noted. .Bl -tag -width "sigignoreXX" -offset 3n .It Cm %cpu Alias: .Cm pcpu . The CPU utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to a minute of previous (real) time. Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may be very young) it is possible for the sum of all .Cm %cpu fields to exceed 100%. .It Cm %mem Alias: .Cm pmem . The percentage of real memory used by this process. .It Cm acflag Alias: .Cm acflg . Accounting flag. .It Cm command Alias: .Cm args . Command and arguments. .It Cm cpu Short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling). .It Cm cpuid CPU ID (zero on single processor systems). .It Cm dsiz Data size, in Kilobytes. .It Cm emul Name of system call emulation environment. .It Cm flags Alias: .Cm f . The flags (in hexadecimal) associated with the process as in the include file .Aq Pa sys/proc.h : .Bd -literal P_CONTROLT 0x0000002 process has a controlling terminal P_NOCLDSTOP 0x0000008 no SIGCHLD when children stop P_PPWAIT 0x0000010 parent is waiting for child to exec/exit P_PROFIL 0x0000020 process has started profiling P_SELECT 0x0000040 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger P_SINTR 0x0000080 sleep is interruptible P_SUGID 0x0000100 process had set ID privileges since last exec P_SYSTEM 0x0000200 system process: no sigs, stats, or swapping P_TIMEOUT 0x0000400 timing out during sleep P_TRACED 0x0000800 process is being traced P_WAITED 0x0001000 debugging process has waited for child P_WEXIT 0x0002000 working on exiting P_EXEC 0x0004000 process called exec(3) P_OWEUPC 0x0008000 owe process an addupc() call at next ast .\" the routine addupc is not documented in the man pages P_SSTEP 0x0020000 process needs single-step fixup P_SUGIDEXEC 0x0040000 last exec(3) was set[ug]id P_NOCLDWAIT 0x0080000 let pid 1 wait for my children P_NOZOMBIE 0x0100000 pid 1 waits for me instead of dad P_INEXEC 0x0200000 process is doing an exec right now P_SYSTRACE 0x0400000 process system call tracing is active .Ed .It Cm gid Effective group. .It Cm group Text name of effective group ID. .It Cm inblk Alias: .Cm inblock . Total blocks read. .It Cm jobc Job control count. .It Cm ktrace Tracing flags. .It Cm ktracep Tracing vnode. .It Cm lim The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to .Xr setrlimit 2 . .It Cm logname Alias: .Cm login . Login name of user who started the process. .It Cm lstart The exact time the command started, using the .Dq %c format described in .Xr strftime 3 . .It Cm majflt Total page faults. .It Cm minflt Total page reclaims. .It Cm msgrcv Total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets). .It Cm msgsnd Total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets). .It Cm nice Alias: .Cm ni . The process scheduling increment (see .Xr setpriority 2 ) . .It Cm nivcsw Total involuntary context switches. .It Cm nsigs Alias: .Cm nsignals . Total signals taken. .It Cm nswap Total swaps in/out. .It Cm nvcsw Total voluntary context switches. .It Cm nwchan Wait channel (as an address). .It Cm oublk Alias: .Cm oublock . Total blocks written. .It Cm p_ru Resource usage (valid only for zombie processes). .It Cm paddr Swap address. .It Cm pagein Pageins (same as .Cm majflt ) . .It Cm pgid Process group number. .It Cm pid Process ID. .It Cm ppid Parent process ID. .It Cm pri Scheduling priority. .It Cm re Core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity). .It Cm rgid Real group ID. .It Cm rgroup Text name of real group ID. .It Cm rlink Reverse link on run queue, or 0. .It Cm rss The real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units). .It Cm rsz Alias: .Cm rssize . Resident set size + (text size / text use count). .It Cm ruid Real user ID. .It Cm ruser User name (from .Cm ruid ) . .It Cm sess Session pointer. .It Cm sig Alias: .Cm pending . Pending signals. .It Cm sigcatch Alias: .Cm caught . Caught signals. .It Cm sigignore Alias: .Cm ignored . Ignored signals. .It Cm sigmask Alias: .Cm blocked . Blocked signals. .It Cm sl Sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity). .It Cm ssiz Stack size, in Kilobytes. .It Cm start Alias: .Cm etime . The time the command started. If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is displayed using the .Dq %l:%M%p format described in .Xr strftime 3 . If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is displayed using the .Dq %a%I%p format. Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the .Dq %e%b%y format. .It Cm state Alias: .Cm stat . The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example, .Dq RWN . The first letter indicates the run state of the process: .Pp .Bl -tag -width indent -compact .It D Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait. .It I Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds). .It R Marks a runnable process. .It S Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds. .It T Marks a stopped process. .It Z Marks a dead process (a .Dq zombie ) . .El .Pp Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state information: .Pp .Bl -tag -width indent -compact .It + The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal. .It \*(Lt The process has a raised CPU scheduling priority (see .Xr setpriority 2 ) . .It \*(Gt The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not swapped. .\" .It A .\" the process has asked for random page replacement .\" .Pf ( Dv MADV_RANDOM , .\" from .\" .Xr madvise 2 , .\" for example, .\" .Xr lisp 1 .\" in a garbage collect). .It E The process is trying to exit. .It K The process is a kernel thread. .It N The process has a reduced CPU scheduling priority. .\" .It S .\" The process has asked for FIFO .\" page replacement .\" .Pf ( Dv MADV_SEQUENTIAL , .\" from .\" .Xr madvise 2 , .\" for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to .\" sequentially address voluminous data). .It s The process is a session leader. .It V The process is suspended during a .Xr vfork 2 . .It X The process is being traced or debugged. .It x The process is being monitored by .Xr systrace 1 . .It / Ns Ar n On multiprocessor machines, specifies processor number .Ar n . .El .It Cm svgid Saved GID from a setgid executable. .It Cm svuid Saved UID from a setuid executable. .It Cm tdev Control terminal device number. .It Cm time Alias: .Cm cputime . Accumulated CPU time, user + system. .It Cm tpgid Control terminal process group ID. .\".It trss .\"Text resident set size, in Kilobytes. .It Cm tsess Control terminal session pointer. .It Cm tsiz Text size, in Kilobytes. .It Cm tt An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any. The abbreviation consists of the two letters following .Dq /dev/tty , or, for the console, .Dq co . This is followed by a .Sq - if the process can no longer reach that controlling terminal (i.e. it has been revoked). .It Cm tty Full name of control terminal. .It Cm ucomm Alias: .Cm comm . Name to be used for accounting. .It Cm uid Effective user ID. .It Cm upr Alias: .Cm usrpri . Scheduling priority on return from system call. .It Cm user User name (from .Cm uid ) . .It Cm vsz Alias: .Cm vsize . Virtual size, in Kilobytes. .It Cm wchan The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits. When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is trimmed off and the result is printed in hex; for example, 0x80324000 prints as 324000. .It Cm xstat Exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process). .El .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width "/var/db/kvm_bsd.dbXXX" -compact .It Pa /dev special files and device names .It Pa /var/db/kvm_bsd.db system namelist database .It Pa /var/run/dev.db .Pa /dev name database .El .Sh EXAMPLES Display information on all system processes: .Pp .Dl $ ps -auxw .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr fstat 1 , .Xr kill 1 , .Xr netstat 1 , .Xr pgrep 1 , .Xr pkill 1 , .Xr procmap 1 , .Xr systat 1 , .Xr top 1 , .Xr w 1 , .Xr kvm 3 , .Xr strftime 3 , .Xr dev_mkdb 8 , .Xr iostat 8 , .Xr pstat 8 , .Xr vmstat 8 .Sh STANDARDS The .Nm utility is compliant with the .St -p1003.1-2008 specification. .Pp The flags .Op Fl CchjkLMmNOrST are extensions to that specification. .Pp Behaviour for the .Fl e flag differs between this implementation and .St -p1003.1-2008 . .Sh HISTORY A .Nm command appeared in .At v3 in section 8 of the manual. .Sh CAVEATS When printing using the .Cm command keyword, a process that has exited and has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie) is listed as .Dq Aq defunct , and a process which is blocked while trying to exit is listed as .Dq Aq exiting . .Nm makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the process was created by examining memory or the swap area. The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended on too much. The .Cm ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on. .Sh BUGS Since .Nm cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled process, the information it displays can never be exact.