1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)ps.1 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/18/94 29.\" $FreeBSD: src/bin/ps/ps.1,v 1.24.2.7 2002/06/20 22:43:33 charnier Exp $ 30.\" 31.Dd September 2, 2008 32.Dt PS 1 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm ps 36.Nd process status 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Op Fl aCcefHhjlmrRSTuvwx 40.Op Fl M Ar core 41.Op Fl N Ar system 42.Op Fl O Ar fmt 43.Op Fl o Ar fmt 44.Op Fl p Ar pid 45.Op Fl t Ar tty 46.Op Fl U Ar username 47.Nm 48.Op Fl L 49.Sh DESCRIPTION 50The 51.Nm 52utility 53displays a header line followed by lines containing information about your 54processes that have controlling terminals. 55This information is sorted by controlling terminal, then by process ID. 56.Pp 57The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (see the 58.Fl L 59.Fl O 60and 61.Fl o 62options). 63The default output format includes, for each process, the process' ID, 64controlling terminal, CPU time (including both user and system time), 65state, and associated command. 66.Pp 67The process file system (see 68.Xr procfs 5 ) 69should be mounted when 70.Nm 71is executed, otherwise not all information will be available. 72.Pp 73The options are as follows: 74.Bl -tag -width indent 75.It Fl a 76Display information about other users' processes as well as your own. 77This can be disabled by setting the 78.Va security.ps_showallprocs 79sysctl to zero. 80.It Fl c 81Change the ``command'' column output to just contain the executable name, 82rather than the full command line. 83.It Fl C 84Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a ``raw'' 85CPU calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this normally has 86no effect). 87.It Fl e 88Display the environment as well. 89.It Fl f 90Show commandline and environment information about swapped out processes. 91This option is honored only if the uid of the user is 0. 92.It Fl H 93Print one line per lightweight process (LWP) instead of one line per process. 94When this option is set and the 95.Fl o 96option is not set, the 97.Cm tid 98column is inserted in the output format after the 99.Cm pid 100one. 101.It Fl h 102Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one 103header per page of information. 104.It Fl j 105Print information associated with the following keywords: 106.Cm user , pid , ppid , pgid , sess , jobc , state , tt , time , 107and 108.Cm command . 109.It Fl L 110List the set of available keywords. 111.It Fl l 112Display information associated with the following keywords: 113.Cm uid , pid , ppid , cpu , pri , nice , vsz , rss , wchan , state , 114.Cm tt , time , 115and 116.Cm command . 117.It Fl M 118Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core 119instead of the default 120.Pa /dev/kmem . 121.It Fl m 122Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID. 123.It Fl N 124Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default 125.Pa /boot/kernel . 126.It Fl O 127Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list 128of keywords specified, after the process ID, 129in the default information 130display. 131Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. 132This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of 133the standard header. 134.It Fl o 135Display information associated with the space or comma separated list 136of keywords specified. 137Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. 138This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of 139the standard header. 140.It Fl p 141Display information associated with the specified process ID. 142.It Fl r 143Sort by current CPU usage, instead of by process ID. 144.It Fl R 145Subsort by parent/child chain. This very useful option makes 146the parent/child associations clear and understandable. 147If used in combination with 148.Fl p 149then all children of the specified process will be output 150recursively in addition to the process itself. 151.It Fl S 152Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited 153children to their parent process. 154.It Fl T 155Display information about processes attached to the device associated 156with the standard input. 157.It Fl t 158Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal 159device. 160.It Fl U 161Display the processes belonging to the specified 162.Ar username . 163.It Fl u 164Display information associated with the following keywords: 165.Cm user , pid, %cpu , %mem , vsz , rss , tt , state , start , time , 166and 167.Cm command . 168The 169.Fl u 170option implies the 171.Fl r 172option. 173.It Fl v 174Display information associated with the following keywords: 175.Cm pid , state , time , sl , re , pagein , vsz , rss , lim , tsiz , 176.Cm %cpu , %mem 177and 178.Cm command . 179The 180.Fl v 181option implies the 182.Fl m 183option. 184.It Fl w 185Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which 186is your window size. 187If the 188.Fl w 189option is specified more than once, 190.Nm 191will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size. 192.It Fl x 193Display information about processes without controlling terminals. 194.El 195.Pp 196A complete list of the available keywords are listed below. 197Some of these keywords are further specified as follows: 198.Bl -tag -width ".Cm lstart" 199.It Cm %cpu 200The CPU utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to 201a minute of previous (real) time. 202Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may 203be very young) it is possible for the sum of all 204.Cm %cpu 205fields to exceed 100%. 206.It Cm %mem 207The percentage of real memory used by this process. 208.It Cm flags 209The flags associated with the process as in 210the include file 211.In sys/proc.h . 212.It Cm lim 213The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to 214.Xr setrlimit 2 . 215.It Cm lstart 216The exact time the command started, using the ``%c'' format described in 217.Xr strftime 3 . 218.It Cm nice 219The process scheduling increment (see 220.Xr setpriority 2 ) . 221.It Cm rss 222the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units). 223.It Cm start 224The time the command started. 225If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is 226displayed using the ``%l:ps.1p'' format described in 227.Xr strftime 3 . 228If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is 229displayed using the ``%a6.15p'' format. 230Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format. 231.It Cm state 232The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example, 233.Dq Li RWNA . 234The first letter indicates the run state of the process: 235.Pp 236.Bl -tag -width indent -compact 237.It Li B 238Marks a blocked kernel thread. 239.It Li D 240Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait. 241.It Li I 242Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds). 243.It Li J 244Marks a process which is in 245.Xr jail 2 . 246The hostname of the prison can be found in 247.Pa /proc/ Ns Ao Ar pid Ac Ns Pa /status . 248.It Li R 249Marks a runnable process and is followed by the CPU number. 250.It Li S 251Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds. 252.It Li T 253Marks a stopped process. 254.It Li Z 255Marks a dead process (a 256.Dq zombie ) . 257.El 258.Pp 259Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state 260information: 261.Pp 262.Bl -tag -width indent -compact 263.It Li + 264The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal. 265.It Li < 266The process has raised CPU scheduling priority. 267.It Li > 268The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is 269currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not 270swapped. 271.It Li A 272the process has asked for random page replacement 273.Pf ( Dv MADV_RANDOM , 274from 275.Xr madvise 2 , 276for example, 277.Xr lisp 1 278in a garbage collect). 279.It Li E 280The process is trying to exit. 281.It Li L 282The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw 283.Tn I/O ) . 284.It Li N 285The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see 286.Xr setpriority 2 ) . 287.It Li S 288The process has asked for FIFO page replacement 289.Pf ( Dv MADV_SEQUENTIAL , 290from 291.Xr madvise 2 , 292for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to 293sequentially address voluminous data). 294.It Li s 295The process is a session leader. 296.It Li V 297The process is suspended during a 298.Xr vfork 2 . 299.It Li W 300The process is swapped out. 301.It Li X 302The process is being traced or debugged. 303.El 304.It Cm tt 305An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any. 306The abbreviation consists of the three letters following 307.Pa /dev/tty , 308or, for the console, ``con''. 309This is followed by a ``-'' if the process can no longer reach that 310controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked). 311.It Cm wchan 312The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits. 313When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is 314trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, for example, 0x80324000 prints 315as 324000. Note that blocked threads often only have ascii wchan's. 316.El 317.Pp 318When printing using the 319.Cm command 320keyword, a process that has exited and 321has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie) 322is listed as ``<defunct>'', and a process which is blocked while trying 323to exit is listed as ``<exiting>''. 324The 325.Nm 326utility 327makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the 328process was created by examining memory or the swap area. 329The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process 330is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended 331on too much. 332The 333.Cm ucomm 334(accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on. 335.Sh KEYWORDS 336The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their 337meanings. 338Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms). 339.Pp 340.Bl -tag -width ".Cm sigignore" -compact 341.It Cm %cpu 342percentage CPU usage (alias 343.Cm pcpu ) 344.It Cm %mem 345percentage memory usage (alias 346.Cm pmem ) 347.It Cm acflag 348accounting flag (alias 349.Cm acflg ) 350.It Cm batch 351batchness of the process (higher numbers mean less interactivity) 352.It Cm command 353command and arguments 354.It Cm cpu 355short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling) 356.It Cm f 357the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias 358.Cm flags ) 359.It Cm inblk 360total blocks read (alias 361.Cm inblock ) 362.It Cm jail 363jail ID 364.It Cm jobc 365job control count 366.It Cm ktrace 367tracing flags 368.\" .It Cm ktracep 369.\" tracing vnode 370.It Cm lastcpu 371CPU ID the process was last scheduled on 372.It Cm lim 373memoryuse limit 374.It Cm login 375login name of user who started the process (alias 376.Cm logname ) 377.It Cm lstart 378time started 379.It Cm majflt 380total page faults 381.It Cm minflt 382total page reclaims 383.It Cm msgrcv 384total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets) 385.It Cm msgsnd 386total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets) 387.It Cm nice 388nice value (alias 389.Cm ni ) 390.It Cm nivcsw 391total involuntary context switches 392.It Cm nlwp 393number of lightweight processes 394.It Cm nsigs 395total signals taken (alias 396.Cm nsignals ) 397.It Cm nswap 398total swaps in/out 399.It Cm nvcsw 400total voluntary context switches 401.It Cm nwchan 402wait channel (as an address) 403.It Cm oublk 404total blocks written (alias 405.Cm oublock ) 406.It Cm p_ru 407resource usage (valid only for zombie) 408.It Cm paddr 409swap address 410.It Cm pagein 411pageins (same as 412.Cm majflt ) 413.It Cm pgid 414process group number 415.It Cm pid 416process ID 417.It Cm ppid 418parent process ID 419.It Cm pri 420scheduling priority (lower == better) 421.It Cm re 422core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity) 423.It Cm rgid 424real group ID 425.\" .It Cm rlink 426.\" reverse link on run queue, or 0 427.It Cm rss 428resident set size 429.It Cm rsz 430resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias 431.Cm rssize ) 432.It Cm rtprio 433realtime priority (101 = not a realtime process) 434.It Cm ruid 435real user ID 436.It Cm ruser 437user name (from ruid) 438.It Cm sess 439session pointer 440.It Cm sig 441pending signals (alias 442.Cm pending ) 443.It Cm sigcatch 444caught signals (alias 445.Cm caught ) 446.It Cm sigignore 447ignored signals (alias 448.Cm ignored ) 449.It Cm sigmask 450blocked signals (alias 451.Cm blocked ) 452.It Cm sl 453sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity) 454.It Cm start 455time started 456.It Cm state 457symbolic process state (alias 458.Cm stat ) 459.It Cm svgid 460saved gid from a setgid executable 461.It Cm svuid 462saved uid from a setuid executable 463.It Cm tdev 464control terminal device number 465.It Cm tdpri 466LWKT thread priority (0-31, 31 highest), and critical section count 467.It Cm tid 468thread ID (aka lightweight process ID) 469.It Cm time 470accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias 471.Cm cputime ) 472.It Cm tpgid 473control terminal process group ID 474.\".It Cm trss 475.\"text resident set size (in Kbytes) 476.It Cm tsess 477control terminal session pointer 478.It Cm tsig 479pending thread signals 480.It Cm tsiz 481text size (in Kbytes) 482.It Cm tt 483control terminal name (two letter abbreviation) 484.It Cm tty 485full name of control terminal 486.It Cm ucomm 487name to be used for accounting (alias 488.Cm comm ) 489.It Cm uid 490effective user ID 491.It Cm user 492user name (from uid) 493.It Cm vsz 494virtual size in Kbytes (alias 495.Cm vsize ) 496.It Cm wchan 497wait channel (as a symbolic name) 498.It Cm xstat 499exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process) 500.El 501.Sh FILES 502.Bl -tag -width /var/db/kvm_kernel.db -compact 503.It Pa /dev/kmem 504default kernel memory 505.It Pa /var/run/dev.db 506/dev name database 507.It Pa /var/db/kvm_kernel.db 508system namelist database 509.It Pa /boot/kernel 510default system namelist 511.It Pa /proc 512the mount point of 513.Xr procfs 5 514.El 515.Sh SEE ALSO 516.Xr kill 1 , 517.Xr w 1 , 518.Xr kvm 3 , 519.Xr strftime 3 , 520.Xr procfs 5 , 521.Xr pstat 8 , 522.Xr sysctl 8 523.Sh HISTORY 524The 525.Nm 526command appeared in 527.At v4 . 528.Sh BUGS 529Since 530.Nm 531cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled 532process, the information it displays can never be exact. 533