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PS(1) General Commands Manual PS(1)

psdisplay process status

ps [-aCceHhjkLlmrSTuvwx] [-M core] [-N system] [-O fmt] [-o fmt] [-p pid] [-t tty] [-U username] [-W swap]

The ps utility displays information about active processes. When given no options, ps prints information about processes of the current user that have a controlling terminal.

The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (and for even more control, see the -L, -O, and -o options). The default output format includes, for each process, the process's ID, controlling terminal, state, CPU time (including both user and system time), and associated command.

The options are as follows:

Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.
Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a “raw” CPU calculation that ignores “resident” time (this normally has no effect).
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”.
Display the environment as well.
Also display information about kernel visible threads.
Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one header per page of information.
Print information associated with the following keywords: user, pid, ppid, pgid, sess, jobc, state, tt, time, and command.
Also display information about kernel threads.
List the set of available keywords. This option should not be specified with other options.
Display information associated with the following keywords: uid, pid, ppid, cpu, pri, nice, vsz, rss, wchan, state, tt, time, and command.
core
Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core instead of the running kernel.
Sort by memory usage, instead of by start time ID.
system
Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the running kernel.
fmt
Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified, 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.
fmt
Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified. 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.
pid
Display information associated with the specified process ID.
Sort by current CPU usage, instead of by start time ID.
Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited children to their parent process.
Display information about processes attached to the device associated with the standard input.
tty
Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal device.
username
Display the processes belonging to the specified username.
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.
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.
swap
When not using the running kernel, extract swap information from the specified file.
Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default, which is the window size. If the -w option is specified more than once, ps will use as many columns as necessary without regard for window size.
Display information about processes without controlling terminals.

The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their meanings. Several of them have aliases, which are also noted.

Alias: pcpu. 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%.
Alias: pmem. The percentage of real memory used by this process.
Alias: acflg. Accounting flag.
Alias: args. Command and arguments.
Short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling).
CPU ID (zero on single processor systems).
Current working directory.
Data size, in Kilobytes.
Name of system call emulation environment.
Alias: f. The union of the flags (in hexadecimal) associated with the process and the thread as in the include file ⟨sys/proc.h⟩:
PS_CONTROLT       0x2 process has a controlling terminal
P_SIGSUSPEND      0x8 need to restore before-suspend mask
PS_PPWAIT        0x10 parent is waiting for child to
		      exec/exit
PS_PROFIL        0x20 process has started profiling
P_SELECT         0x40 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger
P_SINTR          0x80 sleep is interruptible
PS_SUGID        0x100 process had set ID privileges since
		      last exec
P_SYSTEM        0x200 system process: no sigs, stats, or
		      swapping
P_TIMEOUT       0x400 timing out during sleep
P_TRACED        0x800 process is being traced
P_WAITED       0x1000 debugging process has waited for
		      child
P_WEXIT        0x2000 working on exiting
PS_EXEC        0x4000 process called exec(3)
P_OWEUPC       0x8000 owe process an addupc() call at next
		      ast
PS_ISPWAIT    0x10000 is parent of PPWAIT child
P_SSTEP       0x20000 process needs single-step fixup
PS_SUGIDEXEC  0x40000 last exec(3) was set[ug]id
P_NOZOMBIE   0x100000 pid 1 waits for me instead of dad
P_INEXEC     0x200000 process is doing an exec right now
P_SYSTRACE   0x400000 process system call tracing is active
P_THREAD    0x4000000 only a thread, not a real process
P_IGNEXITRV 0x8000000 for thread kills
P_SOFTDEP  0x10000000 stuck processing softdep worklist
P_STOPPED  0x20000000 just stopped
P_CPUPEG   0x40000000 do not move to another cpu
Effective group.
Text name of effective group ID.
Alias: inblock. Total blocks read.
Job control count.
Tracing flags.
Tracing vnode.
The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to setrlimit(2).
Alias: login. Login name of user who started the process.
The exact time the command started, using the “%c” format described in strftime(3).
Total page faults.
Maximum resident set size (in 1024 byte units).
Total page reclaims.
Total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets).
Total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets).
Alias: ni. The process scheduling increment (see setpriority(2)).
Total involuntary context switches.
Alias: nsignals. Total signals taken.
Total swaps in/out.
Total voluntary context switches.
Wait channel (as an address).
Alias: oublock. Total blocks written.
Resource usage (valid only for zombie processes).
Swap address.
Pageins (same as majflt).
Process group number.
Process ID.
Parent process ID.
Scheduling priority.
Core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity).
Real group ID.
Text name of real group ID.
Reverse link on run queue, or 0.
The real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).
Alias: rssize. Resident set size + (text size / text use count).
Routing table.
Real user ID.
User name (from ruid).
Session pointer.
Alias: pending. Pending signals.
Alias: caught. Caught signals.
Alias: ignored. Ignored signals.
Alias: blocked. Blocked signals.
Sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity).
Stack size, in Kilobytes.
Alias: etime. 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%I%p” format. Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the “%e%b%y” format.
Alias: stat. The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example, “RWN”. The first letter indicates the run state of the process:

D
Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait.
I
Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
R
Marks a runnable process.
S
Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
T
Marks a stopped process.
Z
Marks 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 a raised CPU scheduling priority (see setpriority(2)).
>
The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not swapped.
E
The process is trying to exit.
K
The process is a kernel thread.
N
The process has a reduced CPU scheduling priority.
s
The process is a session leader.
V
The process is suspended during a vfork(2).
X
The process is being traced or debugged.
x
The process is being monitored by systrace(1).
/n
On multiprocessor machines, specifies processor number n.
Saved GID from a setgid executable.
Saved UID from a setuid executable.
Control terminal device number.
Alias: cputime. Accumulated CPU time, user + system.
Control terminal process group ID.
Control terminal session pointer.
Text size, in Kilobytes.
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).
Full name of control terminal.
Alias: comm. Name to be used for accounting.
Effective user ID.
Alias: usrpri. Scheduling priority on return from system call.
User name (from uid).
Alias: vsize. Virtual size, in Kilobytes.
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.
Exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process).

/dev
special files and device names
/var/db/kvm_bsd.db
system namelist database
/var/run/dev.db
/dev name database

The ps utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

Display information on all system processes:

$ ps -auxw

fstat(1), kill(1), netstat(1), pgrep(1), pkill(1), procmap(1), systat(1), top(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3), dev_mkdb(8), iostat(8), pstat(8), vmstat(8)

The ps utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) specification.

The flags [-CcHhjkLMmNOrST] are extensions to that specification.

Behaviour for the -e flag differs between this implementation and IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).

A ps command appeared in Version 3 AT&T UNIX in section 8 of the manual.

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 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.

Since ps cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled process, the information it displays can never be exact.

August 2, 2012 OpenBSD-5.4