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 June 16, 2016 32.Dt PS 1 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm ps 36.Nd process status 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Op Fl AaCcefHhjlmrRSTuvwx 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 A 81Same as 82.Fl ax . 83.It Fl c 84Change the ``command'' column output to just contain the executable name, 85rather than the full command line. 86.It Fl C 87Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a ``raw'' 88CPU calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this normally has 89no effect). 90.It Fl e 91Display the environment as well. 92.It Fl f 93Show commandline and environment information about swapped out processes. 94This option is honored only if the uid of the user is 0. 95.It Fl H 96Print one line per lightweight process (LWP) instead of one line per process. 97When this option is set and the 98.Fl o 99option is not set, the 100.Cm tid 101column is inserted in the output format after the 102.Cm pid 103one. 104.It Fl h 105Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one 106header per page of information. 107.It Fl j 108Print information associated with the following keywords: 109.Cm user , pid , ppid , pgid , sess , jobc , state , tt , time , 110and 111.Cm command . 112.It Fl L 113List the set of available keywords. 114.It Fl l 115Display information associated with the following keywords: 116.Cm uid , pid , ppid , cpu , pri , nice , vsz , rss , wchan , state , 117.Cm tt , time , 118and 119.Cm command . 120.It Fl M 121Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core 122instead of the default 123.Pa /dev/kmem . 124.It Fl m 125Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID. 126.It Fl N 127Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default 128.Pa /boot/kernel . 129.It Fl O 130Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list 131of keywords specified, after the process ID, 132in the default information 133display. 134Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. 135This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of 136the standard header. 137.It Fl o 138Display information associated with the space or comma separated list 139of keywords specified. 140Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. 141This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of 142the standard header. 143.It Fl p 144Display information associated with the specified process ID. 145.It Fl r 146Sort by current CPU usage, instead of by process ID. 147.It Fl R 148Subsort by parent/child chain. This very useful option makes 149the parent/child associations clear and understandable. 150If used in combination with 151.Fl p 152then all children of the specified process will be output 153recursively in addition to the process itself. 154.It Fl S 155Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited 156children to their parent process. 157.It Fl T 158Display information about processes attached to the device associated 159with the standard input. 160.It Fl t 161Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal 162device. 163.It Fl U 164Display the processes belonging to the specified 165.Ar username . 166.It Fl u 167Display information associated with the following keywords: 168.Cm user , pid, %cpu , %mem , vsz , rss , tt , state , start , time , 169and 170.Cm command . 171The 172.Fl u 173option implies the 174.Fl r 175option. 176.It Fl v 177Display information associated with the following keywords: 178.Cm pid , state , time , sl , re , pagein , vsz , rss , lim , tsiz , 179.Cm %cpu , %mem 180and 181.Cm command . 182The 183.Fl v 184option implies the 185.Fl m 186option. 187.It Fl w 188Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which 189is your window size. 190If the 191.Fl w 192option is specified more than once, 193.Nm 194will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size. 195.It Fl x 196Display information about processes without controlling terminals. 197.El 198.Pp 199A complete list of the available keywords are listed below. 200Some of these keywords are further specified as follows: 201.Bl -tag -width ".Cm lstart" 202.It Cm %cpu 203The CPU utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to 204a minute of previous (real) time. 205Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may 206be very young) it is possible for the sum of all 207.Cm %cpu 208fields to exceed 100%. 209.It Cm %mem 210The percentage of real memory used by this process. 211.It Cm flags 212The flags associated with the process as in 213the include file 214.In sys/proc.h . 215.It Cm lim 216The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to 217.Xr setrlimit 2 . 218.It Cm lstart 219The exact time the command started, using the ``%c'' format described in 220.Xr strftime 3 . 221.It Cm nice 222The process scheduling increment (see 223.Xr setpriority 2 ) . 224.It Cm rss 225the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units). 226.It Cm start 227The time the command started. 228If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is 229displayed using the ``%l:ps.1p'' format described in 230.Xr strftime 3 . 231If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is 232displayed using the ``%a6.15p'' format. 233Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format. 234.It Cm state 235The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example, 236.Dq Li RWNA . 237The first letter indicates the run state of the process: 238.Pp 239.Bl -tag -width indent -compact 240.It Li B 241Marks a blocked kernel thread. 242.It Li D 243Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait. 244.It Li I 245Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds). 246.It Li J 247Marks a process which is in 248.Xr jail 2 . 249The hostname of the prison can be found in 250.Pa /proc/ Ns Ao Ar pid Ac Ns Pa /status . 251.It Li R 252Marks a runnable process and is followed by the CPU number. 253.It Li S 254Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds. 255.It Li T 256Marks a stopped process. 257.It Li Z 258Marks a dead process (a 259.Dq zombie ) . 260.El 261.Pp 262Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state 263information: 264.Pp 265.Bl -tag -width indent -compact 266.It Li + 267The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal. 268.It Li < 269The process has raised CPU scheduling priority. 270.It Li > 271The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is 272currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not 273swapped. 274.It Li A 275the process has asked for random page replacement 276.Pf ( Dv MADV_RANDOM , 277from 278.Xr madvise 2 , 279for example, 280.Xr lisp 1 281in a garbage collect). 282.It Li E 283The process is trying to exit. 284.It Li L 285The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw 286.Tn I/O ) . 287.It Li N 288The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see 289.Xr setpriority 2 ) . 290.It Li S 291The process has asked for FIFO page replacement 292.Pf ( Dv MADV_SEQUENTIAL , 293from 294.Xr madvise 2 , 295for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to 296sequentially address voluminous data). 297.It Li s 298The process is a session leader. 299.It Li V 300The process is suspended during a 301.Xr vfork 2 . 302.It Li W 303The process is swapped out. 304.It Li X 305The process is being traced or debugged. 306.El 307.It Cm tt 308An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any. 309The abbreviation consists of the three letters following 310.Pa /dev/tty , 311or, for the console, ``con''. 312This is followed by a ``-'' if the process can no longer reach that 313controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked). 314.It Cm wchan 315The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits. 316When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is 317trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, for example, 0x80324000 prints 318as 324000. Note that blocked threads often only have ascii wchan's. 319.El 320.Pp 321When printing using the 322.Cm command 323keyword, a process that has exited and 324has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie) 325is listed as ``<defunct>'', and a process which is blocked while trying 326to exit is listed as ``<exiting>''. 327The 328.Nm 329utility 330makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the 331process was created by examining memory or the swap area. 332The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process 333is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended 334on too much. 335The 336.Cm ucomm 337(accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on. 338.Sh KEYWORDS 339The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their 340meanings. 341Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms). 342.Pp 343.Bl -tag -width ".Cm sigignore" -compact 344.It Cm %cpu 345percentage CPU usage (alias 346.Cm pcpu ) 347.It Cm %mem 348percentage memory usage (alias 349.Cm pmem ) 350.It Cm acflag 351accounting flag (alias 352.Cm acflg ) 353.It Cm batch 354batchness of the process (higher numbers mean less interactivity) 355.It Cm command 356command and arguments (alias 357.Cm args ) 358.It Cm cpu 359short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling) 360.It Cm f 361the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias 362.Cm flags ) 363.It Cm inblk 364total blocks read (alias 365.Cm inblock ) 366.It Cm jail 367jail ID 368.It Cm jobc 369job control count 370.It Cm ktrace 371tracing flags 372.\" .It Cm ktracep 373.\" tracing vnode 374.It Cm lastcpu 375CPU ID the process was last scheduled on 376.It Cm lim 377memoryuse limit 378.It Cm login 379login name of user who started the process (alias 380.Cm logname ) 381.It Cm lstart 382time started 383.It Cm majflt 384total page faults 385.It Cm minflt 386total page reclaims 387.It Cm msgrcv 388total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets) 389.It Cm msgsnd 390total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets) 391.It Cm nice 392nice value (alias 393.Cm ni ) 394.It Cm nivcsw 395total involuntary context switches 396.It Cm nlwp 397number of lightweight processes 398.It Cm nsigs 399total signals taken (alias 400.Cm nsignals ) 401.It Cm nswap 402total swaps in/out 403.It Cm nvcsw 404total voluntary context switches 405.It Cm nwchan 406wait channel (as an address) 407.It Cm oublk 408total blocks written (alias 409.Cm oublock ) 410.It Cm p_ru 411resource usage (valid only for zombie) 412.It Cm paddr 413swap address 414.It Cm pagein 415pageins (same as 416.Cm majflt ) 417.It Cm pgid 418process group number 419.It Cm pid 420process ID 421.It Cm ppid 422parent process ID 423.It Cm pri 424scheduling priority (lower == better) 425.It Cm re 426core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity) 427.It Cm rgid 428real group ID 429.\" .It Cm rlink 430.\" reverse link on run queue, or 0 431.It Cm rss 432resident set size 433.It Cm rsz 434resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias 435.Cm rssize ) 436.It Cm rtprio 437realtime priority (101 = not a realtime process) 438.It Cm ruid 439real user ID 440.It Cm ruser 441user name (from ruid) 442.It Cm sess 443session pointer 444.It Cm sig 445pending signals (alias 446.Cm pending ) 447.It Cm sigcatch 448caught signals (alias 449.Cm caught ) 450.It Cm sigignore 451ignored signals (alias 452.Cm ignored ) 453.It Cm sigmask 454blocked signals (alias 455.Cm blocked ) 456.It Cm sl 457sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity) 458.It Cm start 459time started 460.It Cm state 461symbolic process state (alias 462.Cm stat ) 463.It Cm svgid 464saved gid from a setgid executable 465.It Cm svuid 466saved uid from a setuid executable 467.It Cm tdev 468control terminal device number 469.It Cm tdpri 470LWKT thread priority (0-31, 31 highest), and critical section count 471.It Cm tid 472thread ID (aka lightweight process ID) 473.It Cm time 474accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias 475.Cm cputime ) 476.It Cm tpgid 477control terminal process group ID 478.\".It Cm trss 479.\"text resident set size (in Kbytes) 480.It Cm tsess 481control terminal session pointer 482.It Cm tsig 483pending thread signals 484.It Cm tsiz 485text size (in Kbytes) 486.It Cm tt 487control terminal name (two letter abbreviation) 488.It Cm tty 489full name of control terminal 490.It Cm ucomm 491name to be used for accounting (alias 492.Cm comm ) 493.It Cm uid 494effective user ID 495.It Cm user 496user name (from uid) 497.It Cm vsz 498virtual size in Kbytes (alias 499.Cm vsize ) 500.It Cm wchan 501wait channel (as a symbolic name) 502.It Cm xstat 503exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process) 504.El 505.Sh FILES 506.Bl -tag -width /var/db/kvm_kernel.db -compact 507.It Pa /dev/kmem 508default kernel memory 509.It Pa /var/run/dev.db 510/dev name database 511.It Pa /var/db/kvm_kernel.db 512system namelist database 513.It Pa /boot/kernel 514default system namelist 515.It Pa /proc 516the mount point of 517.Xr procfs 5 518.El 519.Sh SEE ALSO 520.Xr kill 1 , 521.Xr w 1 , 522.Xr kvm 3 , 523.Xr strftime 3 , 524.Xr procfs 5 , 525.Xr pstat 8 , 526.Xr sysctl 8 527.Sh HISTORY 528The 529.Nm 530command appeared in 531.At v4 . 532.Sh BUGS 533Since 534.Nm 535cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled 536process, the information it displays can never be exact. 537