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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 $
39 .Op Fl AaCcefHhjlmrRSTuvwx
53 displays a header line followed by lines containing information about your
54 processes that have controlling terminals.
55 This information is sorted by controlling terminal, then by process ID.
57 The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (see the
63 The default output format includes, for each process, the process' ID,
64 controlling terminal, CPU time (including both user and system time),
65 state, and associated command.
67 The process file system (see
69 should be mounted when
71 is executed, otherwise not all information will be available.
73 The options are as follows:
74 .Bl -tag -width indent
76 Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.
77 This can be disabled by setting the
78 .Va security.ps_showallprocs
84 Change the ``command'' column output to just contain the executable name,
85 rather than the full command line.
87 Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a ``raw''
88 CPU calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this normally has
91 Display the environment as well.
93 Show commandline and environment information about swapped out processes.
94 This option is honored only if the uid of the user is 0.
96 Print one line per lightweight process (LWP) instead of one line per process.
97 When this option is set and the
99 option is not set, the
101 column is inserted in the output format after the
105 Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one
106 header per page of information.
108 Print information associated with the following keywords:
109 .Cm user , pid , ppid , pgid , sess , jobc , state , tt , time ,
113 List the set of available keywords.
115 Display information associated with the following keywords:
116 .Cm uid , pid , ppid , cpu , pri , nice , vsz , rss , wchan , state ,
121 Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core
122 instead of the default
125 Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID.
127 Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default
130 Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list
131 of keywords specified, after the process ID,
132 in the default information
134 Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
135 This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
138 Display information associated with the space or comma separated list
139 of keywords specified.
140 Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
141 This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
144 Display information associated with the specified process ID.
146 Sort by current CPU usage, instead of by process ID.
148 Subsort by parent/child chain. This very useful option makes
149 the parent/child associations clear and understandable.
150 If used in combination with
152 then all children of the specified process will be output
153 recursively in addition to the process itself.
155 Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited
156 children to their parent process.
158 Display information about processes attached to the device associated
159 with the standard input.
161 Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal
164 Display the processes belonging to the specified
167 Display information associated with the following keywords:
168 .Cm user , pid, %cpu , %mem , vsz , rss , tt , state , start , time ,
177 Display information associated with the following keywords:
178 .Cm pid , state , time , sl , re , pagein , vsz , rss , lim , tsiz ,
188 Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which
192 option is specified more than once,
194 will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.
196 Display information about processes without controlling terminals.
199 A complete list of the available keywords are listed below.
200 Some of these keywords are further specified as follows:
201 .Bl -tag -width ".Cm lstart"
203 The CPU utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to
204 a minute of previous (real) time.
205 Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may
206 be very young) it is possible for the sum of all
208 fields to exceed 100%.
210 The percentage of real memory used by this process.
212 The flags associated with the process as in
216 The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to
219 The exact time the command started, using the ``%c'' format described in
222 The process scheduling increment (see
223 .Xr setpriority 2 ) .
225 the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).
227 The time the command started.
228 If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is
229 displayed using the ``%l:ps.1p'' format described in
231 If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is
232 displayed using the ``%a6.15p'' format.
233 Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format.
235 The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example,
237 The first letter indicates the run state of the process:
239 .Bl -tag -width indent -compact
241 Marks a blocked kernel thread.
243 Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait.
245 Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
247 Marks a process which is in
249 The hostname of the prison can be found in
250 .Pa /proc/ Ns Ao Ar pid Ac Ns Pa /status .
252 Marks a runnable process and is followed by the CPU number.
254 Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
256 Marks a stopped process.
258 Marks a dead process (a
262 Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state
265 .Bl -tag -width indent -compact
267 The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.
269 The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
271 The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is
272 currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not
275 the process has asked for random page replacement
276 .Pf ( Dv MADV_RANDOM ,
281 in a garbage collect).
283 The process is trying to exit.
285 The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw
288 The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see
289 .Xr setpriority 2 ) .
291 The process has asked for FIFO page replacement
292 .Pf ( Dv MADV_SEQUENTIAL ,
295 for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to
296 sequentially address voluminous data).
298 The process is a session leader.
300 The process is suspended during a
303 The process is swapped out.
305 The process is being traced or debugged.
308 An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any.
309 The abbreviation consists of the three letters following
311 or, for the console, ``con''.
312 This is followed by a ``-'' if the process can no longer reach that
313 controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked).
315 The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits.
316 When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is
317 trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, for example, 0x80324000 prints
318 as 324000. Note that blocked threads often only have ascii wchan's.
321 When printing using the
323 keyword, a process that has exited and
324 has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie)
325 is listed as ``<defunct>'', and a process which is blocked while trying
326 to exit is listed as ``<exiting>''.
330 makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the
331 process was created by examining memory or the swap area.
332 The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process
333 is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended
337 (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.
339 The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their
341 Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms).
343 .Bl -tag -width ".Cm sigignore" -compact
345 percentage CPU usage (alias
348 percentage memory usage (alias
351 accounting flag (alias
354 batchness of the process (higher numbers mean less interactivity)
356 command and arguments (alias
359 short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling)
361 the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias
364 total blocks read (alias
375 CPU ID the process was last scheduled on
379 login name of user who started the process (alias
388 total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)
390 total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)
395 total involuntary context switches
397 number of lightweight processes
399 total signals taken (alias
404 total voluntary context switches
406 wait channel (as an address)
408 total blocks written (alias
411 resource usage (valid only for zombie)
424 scheduling priority (lower == better)
426 core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
430 .\" reverse link on run queue, or 0
434 resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias
437 realtime priority (101 = not a realtime process)
441 user name (from ruid)
445 pending signals (alias
448 caught signals (alias
451 ignored signals (alias
454 blocked signals (alias
457 sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
461 symbolic process state (alias
464 saved gid from a setgid executable
466 saved uid from a setuid executable
468 control terminal device number
470 LWKT thread priority (0-31, 31 highest), and critical section count
472 thread ID (aka lightweight process ID)
474 accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias
477 control terminal process group ID
479 .\"text resident set size (in Kbytes)
481 control terminal session pointer
483 pending thread signals
485 text size (in Kbytes)
487 control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
489 full name of control terminal
491 name to be used for accounting (alias
498 virtual size in Kbytes (alias
501 wait channel (as a symbolic name)
503 exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)
506 .Bl -tag -width /var/db/kvm_kernel.db -compact
508 default kernel memory
509 .It Pa /var/run/dev.db
511 .It Pa /var/db/kvm_kernel.db
512 system namelist database
514 default system namelist
532 in section 8 of the manual.
536 cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled
537 process, the information it displays can never be exact.