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@(#)ps.1 6.13 (Berkeley) 02/12/91
ps [ -aChjlmrSTuvwx ] [ -O|o fmt ] [ -p pid ] [ -t tty \] [ system ] [ core ] [ swap ] ps [ -L ]
The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (see the -L, -O and -o options). The default output format includes, for each process, the process' ID, controlling terminal, cpu time (including both user and system time), state, and associated command.
The options are as follows:
-a Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.
-C Change the way the cpu percentage is calculated by using a ``raw'' cpu calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this normally has no effect).
-h Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one header per page of information.
-j Print information associated with the following keywords: user, pid, ppid, pgid, sess, jobc, state, tt, time and command.
-L List the set of available keywords. If the -L option is specified more than once, ps will display a long listing of the keywords and their meanings.
-l Display information associated with the following keywords: uid, pid, ppid, cpu, pri, nice, vsz, rss, wchan, state, tt, time and command.
-m Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID.
-O Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specifed, after the process ID, in the default information display. Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header.
-o Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specifed. Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header.
-p Display information associated with the specified process ID.
-r Sort by current cpu usage, instead of by process ID.
-S Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited children to their parent process.
-T Display information about processes attached to the device associated with the standard input.
-t Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal device.
-u Display information associated with the following keywords: user, pid, %cpu, %mem, vsz, rss, tt, state, start, time and command. The -u option implies the -r option.
-v Display information associated with the following keywords: pid, state, time, sl, re, pagein, vsz, rss, lim, tsiz, trss, %cpu, %mem and command. The -v option implies the -m option.
-w Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which is your window size. If the -w option is specified more than once, ps will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.
-x Display information about processes without controlling terminals.
Three additional arguments may be specified. The first additional argument is the file to read for the system namelist (instead of the default ``/vmunix''). The second additional argument is a core file to use for kernel memory (instead of the default ``/dev/mem''). The third addition argument is a file to be used for swap (instead of the default ``/dev/swap'').
A complete list of the available keywords are listed below. Some of these keywords are further specifed as follows:
%cpu 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 %CPU fields to exceed 100%.
%mem The percentage of real memory used by this process.
flags The flags (in hexadecimal) associated with the process as in the include file ``sys/proc.h'':
SLOAD 0000001 in core SSYS 0000002 swapper or pager process SLOCK 0000004 process being swapped out SSWAP 0000008 save area flag STRC 0000010 process is being traced SWTED 0000020 another tracing flag SSINTR 0000040 sleep is interruptible SPAGE 0000080 process in page wait state SKEEP 0000100 another flag to prevent swap out SOMASK 0000200 restore old mask after taking signal SWEXIT 0000400 working on exiting SPHYSIO 0000800 doing physical i/o SVFORK 0001000 process resulted from vfork() SVFDONE 0002000 another vfork flag SNOVM 0004000 no vm, parent in a vfork() SPAGV 0008000 init data space on demand, from vnode SSEQL 0010000 user warned of sequential vm behavior SUANOM 0020000 user warned of random vm behavior STIMO 0040000 timing out during sleep SNOCLDSTOP 0080000 no SIGCHLD when children stop SCTTY 0100000 has a controlling terminal SOWEUPC 0200000 owe process an addupc() call at next ast SSEL 0400000 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger SEXEC 0800000 process called exec SHPUX 1000000 HP-UX process (HPUXCOMPAT) SULOCK 2000000 locked in core after swap error SPTECHG 4000000 pte's for process have changed
lim The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to setrlimit (2).
lstart The exact time the command started, using the ``%C'' format described in strftime (3).
nice The process scheduling increment (see setpriority (2)).
rss the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).
start The time the command started. If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is displayed using the ``%l:ps.1p'' format described in strftime (3). If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is displayed using the ``%a6.13p'' format. Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format.
state The state is given by a sequence of letters, e.g., ``RWNA''. The first letter indicates the run state of the process:
0
DMarks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptable) wait.IMarks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).PMarks a process in page wait.RMarks a runnable process.SMarks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.TMarks a stopped process.ZMarks a dead process (a ``zombie'').Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state information:
+The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.<The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.>The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not swapped.Athe process has asked for random page replacement (VA_ANOM, from vadvise (2), e.g., lisp (1) in a garbage collect).EThe process is trying to exit.LThe process has pages locked in core (e.g., for raw I/O).NThe process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see setpriority (2)).SThe process has asked for FIFO page replacement (VA_SEQL, from vadvise (2), e.g., a large image processing program using virtual memory to sequentially address voluminous data).sThe process is a session leader.VThe process is suspended during a vfork.WThe process is swapped out.XThe process is being traced or debugged.
tt An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any. The abbreviation consists of the two letters following ``/dev/tty'', or, for the console, ``co''. This is followed by a ``-'' if the process can no longer reach that controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked).
wchan The event on which the process is waiting (an address in the system). When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, e.g., 0x80324000 prints as 324000.
When printing using the command keyword, a process that has exited and has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (i.e., a zombie) is listed as ``<defunct>'', and a process which is blocked while trying to exit is listed as ``<exiting>''. Ps 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 ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.
"KEYWORDS"The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their meanings. Several of them have aliases, i.e. keywords that are synonyms.0
%cpu 10percentage cpu usage (alias pcpu)%mem 10percentage memory usage (alias pmem)acflag 10accounting flag (alias acflg)command 10command and argumentscpu 10short-term cpu usage factor (for scheduling)flags 10the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)inblk 10total blocks read (alias inblock)jobc 10job control countktrace 10tracing flagsktracep 10tracing vnodelim 10memoryuse limitlogname 10login name of user who started the processlstart 10time startedmajflt 10total page faultsminflt 10total page reclaimsmsgrcv 10total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)msgsnd 10total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)nice 10nice value (alias ni)nivcsw 10total involuntary context switchesnsigs 10total signals taken (alias nsignals)nswap 10total swaps in/outnvcsw 10total voluntary context switchesnwchan 10wait channel (as an address)oublk 10total blocks written (alias oublock)p_ru 10resource usage (valid only for zombie)paddr 10swap addresspagein 10pageins (same as majflt)pgid 10process group numberpid 10process IDpoip 10pageouts in progressppid 10parent process IDpri 10scheduling priorityre 10core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)rgid 10real group IDrlink 10reverse link on run queue, or 0rss 10resident set sizersz 10resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias rssize)ruid 10real user IDruser 10user name (from ruid)sess 10session pointersig 10pending signals (alias pending)sigcatch 10caught signals (alias caught)sigignore 10ignored signals (alias ignored)sigmask 10blocked signals (alias blocked)sl 10sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)start 10time startedstate 10symbolic process state (alias stat)svgid 10saved gid from a setgid executablesvuid 10saved uid from a setuid executabletdev 10control terminal device numbertime 10accumulated cpu time, user + system (alias cputime)tpgid 10control terminal process group IDtrss 10text resident set size (in Kbytes)tsess 10control terminal session pointertsiz 10text size (in Kbytes)tt 10control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)tty 10full name of control terminaluprocp 10process pointerucomm 10name to be used for accountinguid 10effective user IDupr 10scheduling priority on return from system call (alias usrpri)user 10user name (from uid)vsz 10virtual size in Kbytes (alias vsize)wchan 10wait channel (as a symbolic name)xstat 10exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)
FILES/dev special files and device names/dev/kmem default kernel memory
/var/run/dev.db /dev name database
/var/run/kvm_vmunix.db system namelist database
/vmunix default system namelist
"SEE ALSO"kill(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3), pstat(8)BUGSThings can change while ps is running; the picture it gives is only a fairly close approximation to reality.