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PS(1) General Commands Manual PS(1)
NAME
ps - process status
SYNOPSIS
ps [-AaCcdehjlmrSsTuvwx] [-G group] [-k key] [-M core] [-N system]
[-O fmt] [-o fmt] [-p pid] [-t tty] [-U user] [-W swap]
ps -L
DESCRIPTION
ps displays a header line followed by lines containing information about
running processes. By default, the display includes only processes that
have controlling terminals and are owned by your uid. The default sort
order of controlling terminal and (among processes with the same
controlling terminal) process ID may be changed using the -k, -m, or -r
options.
The information displayed for each process 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 all processes. This is equivalent
to -a -x.
-a Display information about other users' processes as well as
your own. Note that this does not display information about
processes without controlling terminals.
-C Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a
"raw" CPU calculation that ignores "resident" time (this
normally has no effect).
-c Do not display full command with arguments, but only the
executable name. This may be somewhat confusing; for
example, all sh(1) scripts will show as "sh".
-d Arrange processes into descendancy order and prefix each
command with indentation text showing sibling and
parent/child relationships. If either of the -m and -r
options are also used, they control how sibling processes
are sorted relative to each other.
-e Display the environment as well. The environment for other
users' processes can only be displayed by the super-user.
-G group Display processes belonging to the users belonging to the
specified group, given either as a group name or a gid.
-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.
-k key Sort the output using the space or comma separated list of
keywords. Multiple sort keys may be specified, using any of
the -k, -m, or -r options. The default sort order is
equivalent to -k tdev,pid.
-L List the set of available keywords.
-l Display information associated with the following keywords:
uid, pid, ppid, cpu, pri, nice, vsz, rss, wchan, state, tt,
time, and command.
-M core Extract values from the specified core file instead of the
running system.
-m Sort by memory usage. This is equivalent to -k vsz.
-N system Extract the name list from the specified system instead of
the default, "/netbsd". Ignored unless -M is specified.
-O fmt Display information associated with the space or comma
separated list of keywords specified. The -O option does
not suppress the default display; it inserts additional
keywords just after the pid keyword in the default display,
or after the pid keyword (if any) in a non-default display
specified before the first use of the -O flag. Keywords
inserted by multiple -O options will be adjacent.
An equals sign ("=") followed by a customised header string
may be appended to a keyword, as described in more detail
under the -o option.
-o fmt Display information associated with the space or comma
separated list of keywords specified. Use of the -o option
suppresses the set of keywords that would be displayed by
default, or appends to the set of keywords specified by
other options.
An equals sign ("=") followed by a customised header string
may be appended to a keyword. This causes the printed
header to use the specified string instead of the default
header associated with the keyword.
Everything after the first equals sign is part of the
customised header text, and this may include embedded spaces
(" "), commas (","), or equals signs ("="). To specify
multiple keywords with customised headers, use multiple -o
or -O options.
If all the keywords to be displayed have customised headers,
and all the customised headers are entirely empty, then the
header line is not printed at all.
If the keyword is capitalized, then an alternate (symbolic)
form of it is printed, if available.
-p pid Display information associated with the specified process
ID.
-r Sort by current CPU usage. This is equivalent to -k %cpu.
-S Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all
exited children to their parent process.
-s Display one line for each LWP, rather than one line for each
process, and display information associated with the
following keywords: uid, pid, ppid, cpu, lid, nlwp, pri,
nice, vsz, rss, wchan, lstate, tt, time, and command.
-T Display information about processes attached to the device
associated with the standard input.
-t tty Display information about processes attached to the
specified terminal device. Use a question mark ("?") for
processes not attached to a terminal device and a minus sign
("-") for processes that have been revoked from their
terminal device.
-U user Display processes belonging to the specified user, given
either as a user name or a uid.
-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, %cpu,
%mem, and command. The -v option implies the -m option.
-W swap Extract swap information from the specified file instead of
the default, "/dev/drum". Ignored unless -M is specified.
-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 to your window size.
-x Also display information about processes without controlling
terminals.
A complete list of the available keywords are listed below. Some of
these keywords are further specified 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/sysctl.h>:
P_ADVLOCK 0x00000001 process may hold a POSIX advisory
lock
P_CONTROLT 0x00000002 process has a controlling terminal
P_INMEM 0x00000004 process is in memory
P_NOCLDSTOP 0x00000008 no SIGCHLD when children stop
P_PPWAIT 0x00000010 parent is waiting for child to
exec/exit
P_PROFIL 0x00000020 process has started profiling
P_SELECT 0x00000040 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger
P_SINTR 0x00000080 sleep is interruptible
P_SUGID 0x00000100 process had set id privileges since
last exec
P_SYSTEM 0x00000200 system process: no sigs or stats
P_SA 0x00000400 process is using scheduler
activations (old)
P_TRACED 0x00000800 process is being traced
P_WAITED 0x00001000 debugging process has waited for
child
P_WEXIT 0x00002000 working on exiting
P_EXEC 0x00004000 process called execve(2)
P_OWEUPC 0x00008000 owe process an addupc() call at
next ast
P_NOCLDWAIT 0x00020000 no zombies if child dies
P_32 0x00040000 32-bit process (used on 64-bit
kernels)
P_CLDSIGIGN 0x0008000 no SIGCHLD when children stop
P_SYSTRACE 0x00200000 process is under systrace(1) (old)
P_CHTRACED 0x00400000 process has been traced and
reparented
P_STOPFORK 0x00800000 process stops at fork(2)
P_STOPEXEC 0x01000000 process stops at exec(2)
P_STOPEXIT 0x02000000 process stops at _exit(2")
P_SYSCALL 0x04000000 process is tracing syscalls
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).
maxrss the maximum resident set size of the process (in 1024 byte
units).
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:%M%p"
format described in strftime(3). If the command started less
than 7 days ago, the start time is displayed using the "%a%p"
format. Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the
"%e%b%y" format.
state The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example, "RNs".
The first letter indicates the run state of the process:
D Marks a process in device or other short term,
uninterruptible wait.
I Marks a process that is idle (sleeping interruptibly for
longer than about MAXSLP (default 20) seconds).
O Marks a process running on a processor.
R Marks a runnable process, or one that is in the process
of creation.
S Marks a process that is sleeping interruptibly for less
than about MAXSLP (default 20) seconds.
T Marks a stopped process.
U Marks a suspended process.
Z Marks a dead process that has exited, but not been waited
for (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 LWP is detached (can't be waited for).
< The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
a The process is using scheduler activations (deprecated).
E The process is in the process of exiting.
K The process is a kernel thread or system process.
l The process has multiple LWPs.
N The process is niced (has reduced CPU scheduling
priority) (see setpriority(2)).
s The process is a session leader.
V The process is suspended during a vfork(2).
X The 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 (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.
When printing using the 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 "<defunct>", and a process which is blocked while
trying to exit is listed as "<exiting>".
ps will try to locate the processes' argument vector from the user area
in order to print the command name and arguments. This method is not
reliable because a process is allowed to destroy this information. The
ucomm (accounting) keyword will always contain the real command name as
contained in the process structure's p_comm field.
If the command vector cannot be located (usually because it has not been
set, as is the case of system processes and/or kernel threads) the
command name is printed within square brackets.
To indicate that the argument vector has been tampered with, ps will
append the real command name to the output within parentheses if the
basename of the first argument in the argument vector does not match the
contents of the real command name.
In addition, ps checks for the following two situations and does not
append the real command name parenthesized:
-shellname
The login process traditionally adds a `-' in front of the shell
name to indicate a login shell. ps will not append parenthesized
the command name if it matches with the name in the first
argument of the argument vector, skipping the leading `-'.
daemonname: current-activity
Daemon processes frequently report their current activity by
setting their name to be like "daemonname: current-activity". ps
will not append parenthesized the command name, if the string
preceding the `:' in the first argument of the argument vector
matches the command name.
KEYWORDS
The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their
meanings. Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms).
%cpu percentage CPU usage (alias pcpu)
%mem percentage memory usage (alias pmem)
acflag accounting flag (alias acflg)
comm command (the argv[0] value)
command command and arguments (alias args)
cpu short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling)
cpuid CPU number the current process or lwp is running on.
ctime accumulated CPU time of all children that have exited
egid effective group id
egroup group name (from egid)
emul emulation name
etime elapsed time since the process was started, in the form
[[dd-]hh:]mm:ss
euid effective user id
euser user name (from euid)
flags the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)
gid effective group id
group group name (from gid)
groupnames group names (from group access list)
groups group access list
idrss integral unshared data
isrss integral unshared stack
ixrss integral shared memory size
inblk total blocks read (alias inblock)
jobc job control count
ktrace tracing flags
ktracep tracing vnode
laddr kernel virtual address of the struct lwp belonging to the
LWP.
lid ID of the LWP
lim memory use limit
lname descriptive name of the LWP
logname login name of user who started the process (alias login)
lstart time started
lstate symbolic LWP state
ltime CPU time of the LWP
majflt total page faults
maxrss maximum resident set size
minflt total page reclaims
msgrcv total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)
msgsnd total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)
nice nice value (alias ni)
nivcsw total involuntary context switches
nlwp number of LWPs in the process
nsigs total signals taken (alias nsignals)
nvcsw total voluntary context switches
nwchan wait channel (as an address)
oublk total blocks written (alias oublock)
p_ru resource usage pointer (valid only for zombie)
paddr kernel virtual address of the struct proc belonging to the
process.
pagein pageins (same as majflt)
pgid process group number
pid process ID
ppid parent process ID
pri scheduling priority
re core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
rgid real group ID
rlink reverse link on run queue, or 0
rlwp number of LWPs on a processor or run queue
rss resident set size
rsz resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias
rssize)
ruid real user ID
ruser user name (from ruid)
sess session pointer
sid session ID
sig pending signals (alias pending)
sigcatch caught signals (alias caught)
sigignore ignored signals (alias ignored)
sigmask blocked signals (alias blocked)
sl sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
start time started
state symbolic process state (alias stat)
stime accumulated system CPU time
svgid saved gid from a setgid executable
svgroup group name (from svgid)
svuid saved uid from a setuid executable
svuser user name (from svuid)
tdev control terminal device number
time accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias cputime)
tpgid control terminal process group ID
tsess control terminal session pointer
tsiz text size (in Kbytes)
tt control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
tty full name of control terminal
uaddr kernel virtual address of the struct user belonging to the
LWP.
ucomm name to be used for accounting
uid effective user ID
upr scheduling priority on return from system call (alias usrpri)
user user name (from uid)
utime accumulated user CPU time
vsz virtual size in Kbytes (alias vsize)
wchan wait channel (as a symbolic name)
xstat exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie
process)
FILES
/dev special files and device names
/dev/drum default swap device
/var/run/dev.cdb
/dev name database
/var/db/kvm.db system name list database
/netbsd default system name list
SEE ALSO
kill(1), pgrep(1), pkill(1), sh(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3),
dev_mkdb(8), pstat(8)
HISTORY
A ps utility appeared in Version 3 AT&T UNIX in section 8 of the manual.
BUGS
Since ps cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other
scheduled process, the information it displays can never be exact.
The -G option should ideally take a list instead of a single group.
NetBSD 10.99 November 6, 2021 NetBSD 10.99