1.\" $OpenBSD: ps.1,v 1.53 2005/07/01 05:21:20 jmc Exp $ 2.\" $NetBSD: ps.1,v 1.16 1996/03/21 01:36:28 jtc Exp $ 3.\" 4.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994 5.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)ps.1 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/18/94 32.\" 33.Dd April 18, 1994 34.Dt PS 1 35.Os 36.Sh NAME 37.Nm ps 38.Nd process status 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.Nm ps 41.Sm off 42.Oo \&- Oc Op Cm aCcehjklmrSTuvwx 43.Sm on 44.Op Fl M Ar core 45.Op Fl N Ar system 46.Op Fl O Ar fmt 47.Op Fl o Ar fmt 48.Op Fl p Ar pid 49.Op Fl t Ar tty 50.Op Fl U Ar username 51.Op Fl W Ar swap 52.Nm ps 53.Op Fl L 54.Sh DESCRIPTION 55The 56.Nm 57utility displays information about active processes. 58When given no options, 59.Nm 60prints information about processes associated with the controlling terminal. 61.Pp 62The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (and for 63even more control, see the 64.Fl L , 65.Fl O , 66and 67.Fl o 68options). 69The default output format includes, for each process, the process's ID, 70controlling terminal, CPU time (including both user and system time), 71state, and associated command. 72.Pp 73The options are as follows: 74.Bl -tag -width Ds 75.It Fl a 76Display information about other users' processes as well as your own. 77.It Fl C 78Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a 79.Dq raw 80CPU calculation that ignores 81.Dq resident 82time (this normally has 83no effect). 84.It Fl c 85Do not display full command with arguments, but only the 86executable name. 87This may be somewhat confusing; for example, all 88.Xr sh 1 89scripts will show as 90.Dq sh . 91.It Fl e 92Display the environment as well. 93.It Fl h 94Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one 95header per page of information. 96.It Fl j 97Print information associated with the following keywords: 98user, pid, ppid, pgid, sess, jobc, state, tt, time, and command. 99.It Fl k 100Also display information about kernel threads. 101.It Fl L 102List the set of available keywords. 103.It Fl l 104Display information associated with the following keywords: 105uid, pid, ppid, cpu, pri, nice, vsz, rss, wchan, state, tt, time 106and command. 107.It Fl M Ar core 108Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core 109instead of the running kernel. 110.It Fl m 111Sort by memory usage, instead of by start time 112.Tn ID . 113.It Fl N Ar system 114Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the running kernel. 115.It Fl O Ar fmt 116Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list 117of keywords specified, after the process 118.Tn ID , 119in the default information 120display. 121Keywords may be appended with an equals sign 122.Pq Sq = 123and a string. 124This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of 125the standard header. 126.It Fl o Ar fmt 127Display information associated with the space or comma separated list 128of keywords specified. 129Keywords may be appended with an equals sign 130.Pq Sq = 131and a string. 132This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of 133the standard header. 134.It Fl p Ar pid 135Display information associated with the specified process 136.Tn ID . 137.It Fl r 138Sort by current CPU usage, instead of by start time 139.Tn ID . 140.It Fl S 141Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited 142children to their parent process. 143.It Fl T 144Display information about processes attached to the device associated 145with the standard input. 146.It Fl t Ar tty 147Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal 148device. 149.It Fl U Ar username 150Display the processes belonging to the specified 151.Ar username . 152.It Fl u 153Display information associated with the following keywords: 154user, pid, %cpu, %mem, vsz, rss, tt, state, start, time, and command. 155The 156.Fl u 157option implies the 158.Fl r 159option. 160.It Fl v 161Display information associated with the following keywords: 162pid, state, time, sl, re, pagein, vsz, rss, lim, tsiz, 163%cpu, %mem and command. 164The 165.Fl v 166option implies the 167.Fl m 168option. 169.It Fl W Ar swap 170Extract swap information from the specified file instead of the 171default 172.Dq Pa /dev/drum . 173.It Fl w 174Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default, which 175is your window size. 176If the 177.Fl w 178option is specified more than once, 179.Nm 180will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size. 181.It Fl x 182Display information about processes without controlling terminals. 183.El 184.Pp 185All available keywords are listed below. 186Some of these keywords are further specified as follows: 187.Bl -tag -width indent 188.It %cpu 189The CPU utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to 190a minute of previous (real) time. 191Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may 192be very young) it is possible for the sum of all 193.Tn \&%cpu 194fields to exceed 100%. 195.It %mem 196The percentage of real memory used by this process. 197.It flags 198The flags (in hexadecimal) associated with the process as in 199the include file 200.Aq Pa sys/proc.h : 201.Bl -column P_NOCLDSTOP P_NOCLDSTOP 202.It Dv "P_ADVLOCK" Ta No "0x0000001 process may hold a POSIX advisory lock" 203.It Dv "P_CONTROLT" Ta No "0x0000002 process has a controlling terminal" 204.It Dv "P_INMEM" Ta No "0x0000004 process is loaded into memory" 205.It Dv "P_NOCLDSTOP" Ta No "0x0000008 no 206.Dv SIGCHLD 207when children stop 208.It Dv "P_PPWAIT" Ta No "0x0000010 parent is waiting for child to exec/exit" 209.It Dv "P_PROFIL" Ta No "0x0000020 process has started profiling" 210.It Dv "P_SELECT" Ta No "0x0000040 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger" 211.It Dv "P_SINTR" Ta No "0x0000080 sleep is interruptible" 212.It Dv "P_SUGID" Ta No "0x0000100 process had set id privileges since last exec" 213.It Dv "P_SYSTEM" Ta No "0x0000200 system process: no sigs, stats or swapping" 214.It Dv "P_TIMEOUT" Ta No "0x0000400 timing out during sleep" 215.It Dv "P_TRACED" Ta No "0x0000800 process is being traced" 216.It Dv "P_WAITED" Ta No "0x0001000 debugging process has waited for child" 217.It Dv "P_WEXIT" Ta No "0x0002000 working on exiting" 218.It Dv "P_EXEC" Ta No "0x0004000 process called" 219.Xr exec 3 220.It Dv "P_OWEUPC" Ta No "0x0008000 owe process an addupc() call at next ast" 221.\" the routine addupc is not documented in the man pages 222.It Dv "P_FSTRACE" Ta No "0x0010000 tracing via file system" 223.It Dv "P_SSTEP" Ta No "0x0020000 process needs single-step fixup" 224.It Dv "P_SUGIDEXEC" Ta No "0x0040000 last 225.Xr exec 3 226was set[ug]id 227.It Dv "P_NOCLDWAIT" Ta No "0x0080000 let pid 1 wait for my children" 228.It Dv "P_NOZOMBIE" Ta No "0x0100000 pid 1 waits for me instead of dad" 229.It Dv "P_INEXEC" Ta No "0x0200000 process is doing an exec right now" 230.It Dv "P_SYSTRACE" Ta No "0x0400000 process system call tracing is active" 231.El 232.It lim 233The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to 234.Xr setrlimit 2 . 235.It lstart 236The exact time the command started, using the 237.Dq %c 238format described in 239.Xr strftime 3 . 240.It nice 241The process scheduling increment (see 242.Xr setpriority 2 ) . 243.It rss 244The real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units). 245.It start 246The time the command started. 247If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is 248displayed using the 249.Dq %l:%M%p 250format described in 251.Xr strftime 3 . 252If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is 253displayed using the 254.Dq %a%I%p 255format. 256Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the 257.Dq %e%b%y 258format. 259.It state 260The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example, 261.Dq Tn RWN . 262The first letter indicates the run state of the process: 263.Pp 264.Bl -tag -width indent -compact 265.It D 266Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait. 267.It I 268Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds). 269.It R 270Marks a runnable process. 271.It S 272Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds. 273.It T 274Marks a stopped process. 275.It Z 276Marks a dead process (a 277.Dq zombie ) . 278.El 279.Pp 280Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state 281information: 282.Pp 283.Bl -tag -width indent -compact 284.It + 285The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal. 286.It \*(Lt 287The process has raised 288.Tn CPU 289scheduling priority. 290.It \*(Gt 291The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is 292currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not 293swapped. 294.\" .It A 295.\" the process has asked for random page replacement 296.\" .Pf ( Dv MADV_RANDOM , 297.\" from 298.\" .Xr madvise 2 , 299.\" for example, 300.\" .Xr lisp 1 301.\" in a garbage collect). 302.It E 303The process is trying to exit. 304.It K 305The process is a kernel thread. 306.It L 307The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw 308.Tn I/O ) . 309.It N 310The process has reduced 311.Tn CPU 312scheduling priority (see 313.Xr setpriority 2 ) . 314.\" .It S 315.\" The process has asked for 316.\" .Tn FIFO 317.\" page replacement 318.\" .Pf ( Dv MADV_SEQUENTIAL , 319.\" from 320.\" .Xr madvise 2 , 321.\" for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to 322.\" sequentially address voluminous data). 323.It s 324The process is a session leader. 325.It V 326The process is suspended during a 327.Xr vfork 2 . 328.It W 329The process is swapped out. 330.It X 331The process is being traced or debugged. 332.It x 333The process is being monitored by 334.Xr systrace 1 . 335.It / Ns Ar n 336On multiprocessor machines, specifies processor number 337.Ar n . 338.El 339.It tt 340An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any. 341The abbreviation consists of the two letters following 342.Dq Pa /dev/tty , 343or, for the console, 344.Dq co . 345This is followed by a 346.Dq \- 347if the process can no longer reach that 348controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked). 349.It wchan 350The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits. 351When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is 352trimmed off and the result is printed in hex; for example, 0x80324000 prints 353as 324000. 354.El 355.Pp 356When printing using the command keyword, a process that has exited and 357has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie) 358is listed as 359.Dq Aq defunct , 360and a process which is blocked while trying 361to exit is listed as 362.Dq Aq exiting . 363.Nm 364makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the 365process was created by examining memory or the swap area. 366The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process 367is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended 368on too much. 369The ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on. 370.Sh KEYWORDS 371The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their 372meanings. 373Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms). 374.Pp 375.Bl -tag -width sigignore -compact 376.It %cpu 377percentage CPU usage (alias pcpu) 378.It %mem 379percentage memory usage (alias pmem) 380.It acflag 381accounting flag (alias acflg) 382.It command 383command and arguments (alias args) 384.It cpu 385short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling) 386.It cpuid 387CPU ID (zero on single processor systems) 388.It dsiz 389data size (in Kbytes) 390.It emul 391name of system call emulation environment 392.It flags 393the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f) 394.It gid 395effective group 396.It group 397text name of effective group 398.Tn ID 399.It holdcnt 400number of holds on the process (if non-zero, process can't be swapped) 401.It inblk 402total blocks read (alias inblock) 403.It jobc 404job control count 405.It ktrace 406tracing flags 407.It ktracep 408tracing vnode 409.It lim 410memory usage limit 411.It logname 412login name of user who started the process 413(alias login) 414.It lstart 415time started 416.It majflt 417total page faults 418.It minflt 419total page reclaims 420.It msgrcv 421total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets) 422.It msgsnd 423total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets) 424.It nice 425nice value (alias ni) 426.It nivcsw 427total involuntary context switches 428.It nsigs 429total signals taken (alias nsignals) 430.It nswap 431total swaps in/out 432.It nvcsw 433total voluntary context switches 434.It nwchan 435wait channel (as an address) 436.It oublk 437total blocks written (alias oublock) 438.It p_ru 439resource usage (valid only for zombie) 440.It paddr 441swap address 442.It pagein 443pageins (same as majflt) 444.It pgid 445process group number 446.It pid 447process 448.Tn ID 449.It ppid 450parent process 451.Tn ID 452.It pri 453scheduling priority 454.It re 455core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity) 456.It rgid 457real group 458.Tn ID 459.It rgroup 460text name of real group 461.Tn ID 462.It rlink 463reverse link on run queue, or 0 464.It rss 465resident set size 466.It rsz 467resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias rssize) 468.It ruid 469real user 470.Tn ID 471.It ruser 472user name (from ruid) 473.It sess 474session pointer 475.It sig 476pending signals (alias pending) 477.It sigcatch 478caught signals (alias caught) 479.It sigignore 480ignored signals (alias ignored) 481.It sigmask 482blocked signals (alias blocked) 483.It sl 484sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity) 485.It ssiz 486stack size (in Kbytes) 487.It start 488time started (alias etime) 489.It state 490symbolic process state (alias stat) 491.It svgid 492saved GID from a setgid executable 493.It svuid 494saved UID from a setuid executable 495.It tdev 496control terminal device number 497.It time 498accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias cputime) 499.It tpgid 500control terminal process group 501.Tn ID 502.\".It trss 503.\"text resident set size (in Kbytes) 504.It tsess 505control terminal session pointer 506.It tsiz 507text size (in Kbytes) 508.It tt 509control terminal name (two letter abbreviation) 510.It tty 511full name of control terminal 512.It ucomm 513name to be used for accounting (alias comm) 514.It uid 515effective user 516.Tn ID 517.It upr 518scheduling priority on return from system call (alias usrpri) 519.It user 520user name (from uid) 521.It vsz 522virtual size in Kbytes (alias vsize) 523.It wchan 524wait channel (as a symbolic name) 525.It xstat 526exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process) 527.El 528.Sh FILES 529.Bl -tag -width /var/db/kvm_bsd.db -compact 530.It Pa /dev 531special files and device names 532.It Pa /dev/drum 533default swap device 534.It Pa /var/run/dev.db 535/dev name database 536.It Pa /var/db/kvm_bsd.db 537system namelist database 538.El 539.Sh EXAMPLES 540Display information on all system processes: 541.Pp 542.Dl $ ps -auxw 543.Sh SEE ALSO 544.Xr fstat 1 , 545.Xr kill 1 , 546.Xr pgrep 1 , 547.Xr pkill 1 , 548.Xr procmap 1 , 549.Xr sh 1 , 550.Xr top 1 , 551.Xr w 1 , 552.Xr kvm 3 , 553.Xr strftime 3 , 554.Xr dev_mkdb 8 , 555.Xr pstat 8 556.Sh HISTORY 557A 558.Nm 559command appeared in 560.At v3 561in section 8 of the manual. 562.Sh BUGS 563Since 564.Nm 565cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled 566process, the information it displays can never be exact. 567