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28 .\" @(#)ps.1 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
29 .\" $FreeBSD: src/bin/ps/ps.1,v 1.24.2.7 2002/06/20 22:43:33 charnier Exp $
30 .\" $DragonFly: src/bin/ps/ps.1,v 1.20 2008/09/02 11:50:45 matthias Exp $
40 .Op Fl aCcefHhjlmrRSTuvwx
54 displays a header line followed by lines containing information about your
55 processes that have controlling terminals.
56 This information is sorted by controlling terminal, then by process ID.
58 The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (see the
64 The default output format includes, for each process, the process' ID,
65 controlling terminal, CPU time (including both user and system time),
66 state, and associated command.
68 The process file system (see
70 should be mounted when
72 is executed, otherwise not all information will be available.
74 The options are as follows:
75 .Bl -tag -width indent
77 Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.
78 This can be disabled by setting the
79 .Va security.ps_showallprocs
82 Change the ``command'' column output to just contain the executable name,
83 rather than the full command line.
85 Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a ``raw''
86 CPU calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this normally has
89 Display the environment as well.
91 Show commandline and environment information about swapped out processes.
92 This option is honored only if the uid of the user is 0.
94 Print one line per lightweight process (LWP) instead of one line per process.
95 When this option is set and the
97 option is not set, the
99 column is inserted in the output format after the
103 Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one
104 header per page of information.
106 Print information associated with the following keywords:
107 .Cm user , pid , ppid , pgid , sess , jobc , state , tt , time ,
111 List the set of available keywords.
113 Display information associated with the following keywords:
114 .Cm uid , pid , ppid , cpu , pri , nice , vsz , rss , wchan , state ,
119 Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core
120 instead of the default
123 Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID.
125 Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default
128 Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list
129 of keywords specified, after the process ID,
130 in the default information
132 Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
133 This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
136 Display information associated with the space or comma separated list
137 of keywords specified.
138 Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
139 This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
142 Display information associated with the specified process ID.
144 Sort by current CPU usage, instead of by process ID.
146 Subsort by parent/child chain. This very useful option makes
147 the parent/child associations clear and understandable.
149 Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited
150 children to their parent process.
152 Display information about processes attached to the device associated
153 with the standard input.
155 Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal
158 Display the processes belonging to the specified
161 Display information associated with the following keywords:
162 .Cm user , pid, %cpu , %mem , vsz , rss , tt , state , start , time ,
171 Display information associated with the following keywords:
172 .Cm pid , state , time , sl , re , pagein , vsz , rss , lim , tsiz ,
182 Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which
186 option is specified more than once,
188 will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.
190 Display information about processes without controlling terminals.
193 A complete list of the available keywords are listed below.
194 Some of these keywords are further specified as follows:
195 .Bl -tag -width ".Cm lstart"
197 The CPU utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to
198 a minute of previous (real) time.
199 Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may
200 be very young) it is possible for the sum of all
202 fields to exceed 100%.
204 The percentage of real memory used by this process.
206 The flags associated with the process as in
210 The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to
213 The exact time the command started, using the ``%c'' format described in
216 The process scheduling increment (see
217 .Xr setpriority 2 ) .
219 the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).
221 The time the command started.
222 If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is
223 displayed using the ``%l:ps.1p'' format described in
225 If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is
226 displayed using the ``%a6.15p'' format.
227 Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format.
229 The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example,
231 The first letter indicates the run state of the process:
233 .Bl -tag -width indent -compact
235 Marks a blocked kernel thread.
237 Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait.
239 Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
241 Marks a process which is in
243 The hostname of the prison can be found in
244 .Pa /proc/ Ns Ao Ar pid Ac Ns Pa /status .
246 Marks a runnable process and is followed by the CPU number.
248 Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
250 Marks a stopped process.
252 Marks a dead process (a
256 Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state
259 .Bl -tag -width indent -compact
261 The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.
263 The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
265 The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is
266 currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not
269 the process has asked for random page replacement
270 .Pf ( Dv MADV_RANDOM ,
275 in a garbage collect).
277 The process is trying to exit.
279 The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw
282 The process or thread is
284 holding the MP lock (the Big Giant Lock).
286 The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see
287 .Xr setpriority 2 ) .
289 The process has asked for FIFO page replacement
290 .Pf ( Dv MADV_SEQUENTIAL ,
293 for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to
294 sequentially address voluminous data).
296 The process is a session leader.
298 The process is suspended during a
301 The process is swapped out.
303 The process is being traced or debugged.
306 An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any.
307 The abbreviation consists of the three letters following
309 or, for the console, ``con''.
310 This is followed by a ``-'' if the process can no longer reach that
311 controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked).
313 The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits.
314 When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is
315 trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, for example, 0x80324000 prints
316 as 324000. Note that blocked threads often only have ascii wchan's.
319 When printing using the
321 keyword, a process that has exited and
322 has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie)
323 is listed as ``<defunct>'', and a process which is blocked while trying
324 to exit is listed as ``<exiting>''.
328 makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the
329 process was created by examining memory or the swap area.
330 The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process
331 is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended
335 (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.
337 The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their
339 Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms).
341 .Bl -tag -width ".Cm sigignore" -compact
343 percentage CPU usage (alias
346 percentage memory usage (alias
349 accounting flag (alias
352 batchness of the process (higher numbers mean less interactivity)
354 command and arguments
356 short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling)
358 the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias
361 total blocks read (alias
372 CPU ID the process was last scheduled on
376 login name of user who started the process (alias
385 total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)
387 total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)
392 total involuntary context switches
394 number of lightweight processes
396 total signals taken (alias
401 total voluntary context switches
403 wait channel (as an address)
405 total blocks written (alias
408 resource usage (valid only for zombie)
421 scheduling priority (lower == better)
423 core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
427 .\" reverse link on run queue, or 0
431 resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias
434 realtime priority (101 = not a realtime process)
438 user name (from ruid)
442 pending signals (alias
445 caught signals (alias
448 ignored signals (alias
451 blocked signals (alias
454 sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
458 symbolic process state (alias
461 saved gid from a setgid executable
463 saved uid from a setuid executable
465 control terminal device number
467 LWKT thread priority (0-31, 31 highest), and critical section count
469 thread ID (aka lightweight process ID)
471 accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias
474 control terminal process group ID
476 .\"text resident set size (in Kbytes)
478 control terminal session pointer
480 pending thread signals
482 text size (in Kbytes)
484 control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
486 full name of control terminal
488 name to be used for accounting (alias
495 virtual size in Kbytes (alias
498 wait channel (as a symbolic name)
500 exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)
503 .Bl -tag -width /var/db/kvm_kernel.db -compact
505 default kernel memory
506 .It Pa /var/run/dev.db
508 .It Pa /var/db/kvm_kernel.db
509 system namelist database
511 default system namelist
532 cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled
533 process, the information it displays can never be exact.