PS(1) | General Commands Manual | PS(1) |
ps
— display
process status
ps |
[[- ]AaceHhjkLlmrSTuvwx ]
[-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:
-A
-a
-c
-e
-H
-h
-j
-k
-L
-l
-M
core-m
-N
system-O
fmt-o
fmt-p
pid-r
-S
-T
-t
tty-U
username-u
-u
option implies the -r
option.-v
-v
option implies the -m
option.-W
swap-w
-w
option is specified
more than once, ps
will use as many columns as
necessary without regard for window size.-x
The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their meanings. Several of them have aliases, which are also noted.
%cpu
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%.%mem
pmem
. The percentage of real memory used by
this process.acflag
acflg
. Accounting flag.command
args
. Command and arguments.cpu
cpuid
cwd
dsiz
emul
etime
flags
f
. The thread flags (in hexadecimal), as
defined in the include file
<sys/proc.h>
:
P_INKTR 0x1 writing ktrace(2) record P_PROFPEND 0x2 this thread needs SIGPROF P_ALRMPEND 0x4 this thread needs SIGVTALRM P_SIGSUSPEND 0x8 need to restore before-suspend mask P_CANTSLEEP 0x10 this thread is not permitted to sleep P_SELECT 0x40 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger P_SINTR 0x80 sleep is interruptible P_SYSTEM 0x200 system process: no sigs, stats, or swapping P_TIMEOUT 0x400 timing out during sleep P_WEXIT 0x2000 working on exiting P_OWEUPC 0x8000 profiling sample needs recording P_SUSPSINGLE 0x80000 need to suspend for single threading P_CONTINUED 0x800000 thread has continued after a stop P_THREAD 0x4000000 not the original thread P_SUSPSIG 0x8000000 stopped because of a signal P_SOFTDEP 0x10000000 stuck processing softdep worklist P_CPUPEG 0x40000000 do not move to another cpu
gid
group
inblk
inblock
. Total blocks read.jobc
ktrace
ktracep
lim
logname
login
. Login name of user who started the
process.lstart
majflt
maxrss
minflt
msgrcv
msgsnd
nice
ni
. The process scheduling increment (see
setpriority(2)).nivcsw
nsigs
nsignals
. Total signals taken.nswap
nvcsw
nwchan
oublk
oublock
. Total blocks written.p_ru
paddr
pagein
majflt
).pgid
pid
pledge
ppid
pri
procflags
<sys/proc.h>
:
PS_CONTROLT 0x1 process has a controlling terminal PS_EXEC 0x2 process called exec(3) PS_INEXEC 0x4 process is doing an exec right now PS_EXITING 0x8 process is exiting PS_SUGID 0x10 process had set ID privileges since last exec PS_SUGIDEXEC 0x20 last exec(3) was set[ug]id PS_PPWAIT 0x40 parent is waiting for process to exec/exit PS_ISPWAIT 0x80 process is parent of PPWAIT child PS_PROFIL 0x100 process has started profiling PS_TRACED 0x200 process is being traced PS_WAITED 0x400 debugging process has waited for child PS_COREDUMP 0x800 busy coredumping PS_SINGLEEXIT 0x1000 other threads must die PS_SINGLEUNWIND 0x2000 other threads must unwind PS_NOZOMBIE 0x4000 pid 1 waits for me instead of dad PS_STOPPED 0x8000 just stopped, need to send SIGCHLD PS_SYSTEM 0x10000 No signals, stats or swapping PS_EMBRYO 0x20000 New process, not yet fledged PS_ZOMBIE 0x40000 Dead and ready to be waited for PS_NOBROADCASTKILL 0x80000 Process excluded from kill -1 PS_PLEDGE 0x100000 process has called pledge(2)
re
rgid
rgroup
rlink
rss
rsz
rssize
. Resident set size + (text size /
text use count).rtable
ruid
ruser
ruid
).sess
sig
pending
. Pending signals.sigcatch
caught
. Caught signals.sigignore
ignored
. Ignored signals.sigmask
blocked
. Blocked signals.sl
ssiz
start
state
stat
. The state is given by a sequence of
letters, for example, “RWN”. The first letter indicates the
run state of the process:
Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state information:
svgid
svuid
tdev
tid
-H
.time
cputime
. Accumulated CPU time, user +
system.tpgid
tsess
tsiz
tt
tty
ucomm
comm
. Name to be used for accounting.uid
upr
usrpri
. Scheduling priority on return from
system call.user
uid
).vsz
vsize
. Virtual size, in Kilobytes.wchan
xstat
The following environment variables affect the execution of
ps
:
COLUMNS
ps
defaults to the terminal
width minus 1. If none of stdout
,
stderr
, and stdin
are a
terminal, 79 columns are used.LC_CTYPE
TZ
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, except that the flag [-G
] is
unsupported and the flags [-ptU
] support only single
arguments, not lists.
The flags [-defglnu
] are marked by
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) as
being an X/Open System Interfaces option. Of these,
[-dfgn
] are not supported by this implementation of
ps
; behaviour for the flags
[-elu
] differs between this implementation and the
X/Open System Interfaces option of IEEE Std 1003.1-2008
(“POSIX.1”).
The flags [-cHhjkLMmNOrSTvWwx
] are
extensions to IEEE Std 1003.1-2008
(“POSIX.1”).
Only the following keywords are recognised by
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”):
args
, comm
,
etime
, group
,
nice
, pcpu
,
pgid
, pid
,
ppid
, rgroup
,
ruser
, time
,
tty
, user
, and
vsz
.
A ps
command first appeared in
Version 3 AT&T UNIX.
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.
The information displayed is only a snapshot of a constantly changing system.
February 8, 2020 | OpenBSD-current |