.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\" @(#)ps.1 6.10 (Berkeley) %G%
.TH PS 1 "March 10, 1988"
ps [ \-aChjlmrSsTuvwx ] [ \-O|o fmt ] [ \-p pid ] [ \-t tty \] [ system ] [ core ] [ swap ]
displays a header line followed by lines containing information about your
processes that have controlling terminals.
This information is sorted by process ID.
The information displayed 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:
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
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, tname, cputime, comm.
List the set of available keywords.
If the \-L option is specified more than once,
will display a long listing of the keywords and their meanings.
Display information associated with the following keywords:
uid, pid, ppid, cp, pri, nice, vsize, rss, wchan, state, tname,
Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID.
Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list
of keywords specifed, after the process ID, in the default information
Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
Display information associated with the space or comma separated list
Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
Display information associated with the specified process ID.
Sort by current cpu usage, instead of by process ID.
Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited
children to their parent process.
Display information associated with the following keywords:
uid, pid, sig, sigmask, sigignore, sigcatch, stat, tname and comm.
Display information about processes attached to the device associated
Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal
Display information associated with the following keywords:
uname, pid, pcpu, pmem, vsize, rss, tt, state, start, time and comm.
The \-u option implies the \-r option.
Display information associated with the following keywords:
pid, tt, state, time, sl, re, pagein, vsize, rss, lim, tsiz, trs, pcpu,
The \-v option implies the \-m option.
Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which
If the \-w option is specified more than once,
will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.
Display information about processes without controlling terminals.
Three additional arguments may be specified.
The first additional argument is the file to read for the system namelist
(instead of the default ``/vmunix'').
The second additional argument is a core file to use for kernel memory
(instead of the default ``/dev/mem'').
The third addition argument is a file to be used for swap
(instead of the default ``/dev/swap'').
A complete list of the available keywords are listed below.
Some of these keywords are further specifed as follows:
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%.
The percentage of real memory used by this process.
The flags (in hexadecimal) associated with the process as in
the include file ``sys/proc.h'':
.ta \w'SNOCLDSTOP 'u +\w'0040000 'u
SSYS 0000002 swapper or pager process
SLOCK 0000004 process being swapped out
SSWAP 0000008 save area flag
STRC 0000010 process is being traced
SWTED 0000020 another tracing flag
SSINTR 0000040 sleep is interruptible
SPAGE 0000080 process in page wait state
SKEEP 0000100 another flag to prevent swap out
SOMASK 0000200 restore old mask after taking signal
SWEXIT 0000400 working on exiting
SPHYSIO 0000800 doing physical i/o
SVFORK 0001000 process resulted from vfork()
SVFDONE 0002000 another vfork flag
SNOVM 0004000 no vm, parent in a vfork()
SPAGV 0008000 init data space on demand, from vnode
SSEQL 0010000 user warned of sequential vm behavior
SUANOM 0020000 user warned of random vm behavior
STIMO 0040000 timing out during sleep
SNOCLDSTOP 0080000 no SIGCHLD when children stop
SCTTY 0100000 has a controlling terminal
SOWEUPC 0200000 owe process an addupc() call at next ast
SSEL 0400000 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger
SEXEC 0800000 process called exec
SHPUX 1000000 HP-UX process (HPUXCOMPAT)
SULOCK 2000000 locked in core after swap error
SPTECHG 4000000 pte's for process have changed
The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to
The exact time the command started, using the ``%C'' format described in
The process scheduling increment (see
the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).
The time the command started.
If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is
displayed using the ``%l:ps.1p'' format described in
If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is
displayed using the ``%a6.10p'' format.
Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format.
The state is given by a sequence of letters, e.g., ``RWNA''.
The first letter indicates the run state of the process:
Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptable) wait.
Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
Marks a process in page wait.
Marks a runnable process.
Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
Marks a dead process (a ``zombie'').
Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state
The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.
The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is
currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not
the process has asked for random page replacement (VA_ANOM, from
The process is trying to exit.
The process has pages locked in core (e.g., for raw I/O).
The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see
The process has asked for FIFO page replacement (VA_SEQL, from
e.g., a large image processing program using virtual memory to
sequentially address voluminous data).
The process is a session leader.
The process is suspended during a vfork.
The process is swapped out.
The process is being traced or debugged.
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).
The event on which the process is waiting (an address in the system).
When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is
trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, e.g., 0x80324000 prints
When printing using the command keyword, a process that has exited and
has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (i.e., a zombie)
is listed as ``<defunct>'', and a process which is blocked while trying
to exit is listed as ``<exiting>''.
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
The ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.
The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their
Several of them have aliases, i.e. keywords that are synonyms.
percentage cpu usage (alias pcpu)
percentage memory usage (alias pmem)
accounting flag (alias acflg)
short-term cpu usage factor (for scheduling)
the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)
total blocks read (alias inblock)
login name of user who started the process
total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)
total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)
total involuntary context switches
total signals taken (alias nsignals)
total voluntary context switches
wait channel (as an address)
total blocks written (alias oublock)
resource usage (valid only for zombie)
core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
reverse link on run queue, or 0
resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias rssize)
an alias for the following keywords: minflt, majflt, nswap, inblock,
oublock, msgsnd, msgrcv, nsigs, nvcsw and nivcsw.
pending signals (alias pending)
caught signals (alias caught)
ignored signals (alias ignored)
blocked signals (alias blocked)
sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
symbolic process state (alias stat)
saved gid from a setgid executable
saved uid from a setuid executable
control terminal device number
accumulated cpu time, user + system (alias cputime)
control terminal process group ID
text resident set size (in Kbytes)
control terminal session pointer
control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
full name of control terminal
name to be used for accounting
scheduling priority on return from system call (alias usrpri)
virtual size in Kbytes (alias vsize)
wait channel (as a symbolic name)
exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)
.ta \w'/var/run/kvm_vmunix.db 'u
/dev special files and device names
/dev/drum default swap device
/dev/kmem default kernel memory
/var/run/dev.db /dev name database
/var/run/kvm_vmunix.db system namelist database
/vmunix default system namelist
kill(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3), pstat(8)
is running; the picture it gives is only a fairly close
approximation to reality.
projects / unix-history / blob