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man page(1) manual page
Table of Contents
ps - report a snapshot of the current processes.
ps [options]
ps displays information about a selection of the active processes. If
you want a repetitive update of the selection and the displayed
information, use top(1)
instead.
This version of ps accepts several kinds of options:
- 1
- UNIX options, which may be grouped and must be preceded by a dash.
- 2
- BSD options, which may be grouped and must not be used with a dash.
- 3
- GNU long options, which are preceded by two dashes.
Options of different types may be freely mixed, but conflicts can
appear. There are some synonymous options, which are functionally
identical, due to the many standards and ps implementations that this
ps is compatible with.
Note that “ps -aux” is distinct from “ps aux". The POSIX and UNIX
standards require that “ps -aux” print all processes owned by a user
named “x", as well as printing all processes that would be selected by
the -a option. If the user named “x” does not exist, this ps may
interpret the command as “ps aux” instead and print a warning. This
behavior is intended to aid in transitioning old scripts and habits. It
is fragile, subject to change, and thus should not be relied upon.
By default, ps selects all processes with the same effective user ID
(euid=EUID) as the current user and associated with the same terminal
as the invoker. It displays the process ID (pid=PID), the terminal
associated with the process (tname=TTY), the cumulated CPU time in
[dd-]hh:mm:ss format (time=TIME), and the executable name (ucmd=CMD).
Output is unsorted by default.
The use of BSD-style options will add process state (stat=STAT) to the
default display and show the command args (args=COMMAND) instead of the
executable name. You can override this with the PS_FORMAT environment
variable. The use of BSD-style options will also change the process
selection to include processes on other terminals (TTYs) that are owned
by you; alternately, this may be described as setting the selection to
be the set of all processes filtered to exclude processes owned by
other users or not on a terminal. These effects are not considered when
options are described as being “identical” below, so -M will be
considered identical to Z and so on.
Except as described below, process selection options are additive. The
default selection is discarded, and then the selected processes are
added to the set of processes to be displayed. A process will thus be
shown if it meets any of the given selection criteria.
To see every process on the system using standard syntax:
ps -e
ps -ef
ps -eF
ps -ely
To see every process on the system using BSD syntax:
ps ax
ps axu
To print a process tree:
ps -ejH
ps axjf
To get info about threads:
ps -eLf
ps axms
To get security info:
ps -eo euser,ruser,suser,fuser,f,comm,label
ps axZ
ps -eM
To see every process running as root (real & effective ID) in user
format:
ps -U root -u root u
To see every process with a user-defined format:
ps -eo pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,psr,pcpu,stat,wchan:14,comm
ps axo stat,euid,ruid,tty,tpgid,sess,pgrp,ppid,pid,pcpu,comm
ps -eopid,tt,user,fname,tmout,f,wchan
Print only the process IDs of syslogd:
ps -C syslogd -o pid=
Print only the name of PID 42:
ps -p 42 -o comm=
- -A
- Select all processes. Identical to -e.
- -N
- Select all processes except those that fulfill the
specified conditions. (negates the selection) Identical
to --deselect.
- T
- Select all processes associated with this terminal.
Identical to the t option without any argument.
- -a
- Select all processes except session leaders (see
getsid(2)
) and processes not associated with a
terminal.
- a
- Lift the BSD-style “only yourself” restriction, which
is imposed upon the set of all processes when some
BSD-style (without “-") options are used or when the ps
personality setting is BSD-like. The set of processes
selected in this manner is in addition to the set of
processes selected by other means. An alternate
description is that this option causes ps to list all
processes with a terminal (tty), or to list all
processes when used together with the x option.
- -d
- Select all processes except session leaders.
- -e
- Select all processes. Identical to -A.
- g
- Really all, even session leaders. This flag is obsolete
and may be discontinued in a future release. It is
normally implied by the a flag, and is only useful when
operating in the sunos4 personality.
- r
- Restrict the selection to only running processes.
- x
- Lift the BSD-style “must have a tty” restriction, which
is imposed upon the set of all processes when some
BSD-style (without “-") options are used or when the ps
personality setting is BSD-like. The set of processes
selected in this manner is in addition to the set of
processes selected by other means. An alternate
description is that this option causes ps to list all
processes owned by you (same EUID as ps), or to list
all processes when used together with the a option.
- --deselect
- Select all processes except those that fulfill the
specified conditions. (negates the selection) Identical
to -N.
These options accept a single argument in the form of a blank-separated
or comma-separated list. They can be used multiple times.
For example: ps -p “1 2” -p 3,4
- -C cmdlist
- Select by command name.
This selects the processes whose executable name is
given in cmdlist.
- -G grplist
- Select by real group ID (RGID) or name.
This selects the processes whose real group name or ID
is in the grplist list. The real group ID identifies
the group of the user who created the process, see
getgid(2)
.
- U userlist
- Select by effective user ID (EUID) or name.
This selects the processes whose effective user name or
ID is in userlist. The effective user ID describes the
user whose file access permissions are used by the
process (see geteuid(2)
). Identical to -u and --user.
- -U userlist
- select by real user ID (RUID) or name.
It selects the processes whose real user name or ID is
in the userlist list. The real user ID identifies the
user who created the process, see getuid(2)
.
- -g grplist
- Select by session OR by effective group name.
Selection by session is specified by many standards,
but selection by effective group is the logical
behavior that several other operating systems use. This
ps will select by session when the list is completely
numeric (as sessions are). Group ID numbers will work
only when some group names are also specified. See the
-s and --group options.
- p pidlist
- Select by process ID. Identical to -p and --pid.
- -p pidlist
- Select by PID.
This selects the processes whose process ID numbers
appear in pidlist. Identical to p and --pid.
- -s sesslist
- Select by session ID.
This selects the processes with a session ID specified
in sesslist.
- t ttylist
- Select by tty. Nearly identical to -t and --tty, but
can also be used with an empty ttylist to indicate the
terminal associated with ps. Using the T option is
considered cleaner than using T with an empty ttylist.
- -t ttylist
- Select by tty.
This selects the processes associated with the
terminals given in ttylist. Terminals (ttys, or screens
for text output) can be specified in several forms:
/dev/ttyS1, ttyS1, S1. A plain “-” may be used to
select processes not attached to any terminal.
- -u userlist
- Select by effective user ID (EUID) or name.
This selects the processes whose effective user name or
ID is in userlist. The effective user ID describes the
user whose file access permissions are used by the
process (see geteuid(2)
). Identical to U and --user.
- --Group grplist Select by real group ID (RGID) or name. Identical to
-
-G.
- --User userlist Select by real user ID (RUID) or name. Identical to -U.
-
- --group grplist Select by effective group ID (EGID) or name.
-
This selects the processes whose effective group name
or ID is in grouplist. The effective group ID describes
the group whose file access permissions are used by the
process (see geteuid(2)
). The -g option is often an
alternative to --group.
- --pid pidlist
- Select by process ID. Identical to -p and p.
- --ppid pidlist
- Select by parent process ID. This selects the processes
with a parent process ID in pidlist. That is, it
selects processes that are children of those listed in
pidlist.
- --sid sesslist
- Select by session ID. Identical to -s.
- --tty ttylist
- Select by terminal. Identical to -t and t.
- --user userlist Select by effective user ID (EUID) or name. Identical
-
to -u and U.
- -123
- Identical to --sid 123.
- 123
- Identical to --pid 123.
These options are used to choose the information displayed by ps. The
output may differ by personality.
- -F
- extra full format. See the -f option, which -F implies.
- -O format
- is like -o, but preloaded with some default columns.
Identical to -o pid,format,state,tname,time,command or
-o pid,format,tname,time,cmd, see -o below.
- O format
- is preloaded o (overloaded).
The BSD O option can act like -O (user-defined output
format with some common fields predefined) or can be
used to specify sort order. Heuristics are used to
determine the behavior of this option. To ensure that
the desired behavior is obtained (sorting or
formatting), specify the option in some other way (e.g.
with -O or --sort). When used as a formatting option,
it is identical to -O, with the BSD personality.
- -M
- Add a column of security data. Identical to Z.
(for SE Linux)
- X
- Register format.
- Z
- Add a column of security data. Identical to -M.
(for SE Linux)
- -c
- Show different scheduler information for the -l option.
- -f
- does full-format listing. This option can be combined
with many other UNIX-style options to add additional
columns. It also causes the command arguments to be
printed. When used with -L, the NLWP (number of
threads) and LWP (thread ID) columns will be added. See
the c option, the format keyword args, and the format
keyword comm.
- j
- BSD job control format.
- -j
- jobs format
- l
- display BSD long format.
- -l
- long format. The -y option is often useful with this.
- o format
- specify user-defined format. Identical to -o and
--format.
- -o format
- user-defined format.
format is a single argument in the form of a
blank-separated or comma-separated list, which offers a
way to specify individual output columns. The
recognized keywords are described in the STANDARD
FORMAT SPECIFIERS section below. Headers may be renamed
(ps -o pid,ruser=RealUser -o comm=Command) as desired.
If all column headers are empty (ps -o pid= -o comm=)
then the header line will not be output. Column width
will increase as needed for wide headers; this may be
used to widen up columns such as WCHAN
(ps -o pid,wchan=WIDE-WCHAN-COLUMN -o comm). Explicit
width control (ps opid,wchan:42,cmd) is offered too.
The behavior of ps -o pid=X,comm=Y varies with
personality; output may be one column named “X,comm=Y"
or two columns named “X” and “Y". Use multiple -o
options when in doubt. Use the PS_FORMAT environment
variable to specify a default as desired; DefSysV and
DefBSD are macros that may be used to choose the
default UNIX or BSD columns.
- s
- display signal format
- u
- display user-oriented format
- v
- display virtual memory format
- -y
- Do not show flags; show rss in place of addr. This
option can only be used with -l.
- -Z
- display security context format (SELinux, etc.)
- --format format user-defined format. Identical to -o and o.
-
- --context
- Display security context format. (for SE Linux)
- -H
- show process hierarchy (forest)
- N namelist
- Specify namelist file. Identical to -n, see -n above.
- O order
- Sorting order. (overloaded)
The BSD O option can act like -O (user-defined output
format with some common fields predefined) or can be
used to specify sort order. Heuristics are used to
determine the behavior of this option. To ensure that
the desired behavior is obtained (sorting or
formatting), specify the option in some other way (e.g.
with -O or --sort).
For sorting, obsolete BSD O option syntax is
O[+|-]k1[,[+|-]k2[,...]]. It orders the processes
listing according to the multilevel sort specified by
the sequence of one-letter short keys k1, k2, ...
described in the OBSOLETE SORT KEYS section below.
The “+” is currently optional, merely re-iterating the
default direction on a key, but may help to distinguish
an O sort from an O format. The “-” reverses direction
only on the key it precedes.
- S
- Sum up some information, such as CPU usage, from dead
child processes into their parent. This is useful for
examining a system where a parent process repeatedly
forks off short-lived children to do work.
- c
- Show the true command name. This is derived from the
name of the executable file, rather than from the argv
value. Command arguments and any modifications to them
(see setproctitle(3)
) are thus not shown. This option
effectively turns the args format keyword into the comm
format keyword; it is useful with the -f format option
and with the various BSD-style format options, which
all normally display the command arguments. See the -f
option, the format keyword args, and the format keyword
comm.
- e
- Show the environment after the command.
- f
- ASCII-art process hierarchy (forest)
- h
- No header. (or, one header per screen in the BSD
personality)
The h option is problematic. Standard BSD ps uses this
option to print a header on each page of output, but
older Linux ps uses this option to totally disable the
header. This version of ps follows the Linux usage of
not printing the header unless the BSD personality has
been selected, in which case it prints a header on each
page of output. Regardless of the current personality,
you can use the long options --headers and --no-headers
to enable printing headers each page or disable headers
entirely, respectively.
- k spec
- specify sorting order. Sorting syntax is
[+|-]key[,[+|-]key[,...]] Choose a multi-letter key
from the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section. The “+” is
optional since default direction is increasing
numerical or lexicographic order. Identical to --sort.
Examples:
ps jaxkuid,-ppid,+pid
ps axk comm o comm,args
ps kstart_time -ef
- -n namelist
- set namelist file. Identical to N.
The namelist file is needed for a proper WCHAN display,
and must match the current Linux kernel exactly for
correct output. Without this option, the default search
path for the namelist is:
- $PS_SYSMAP
-
$PS_SYSTEM_MAP
/proc/*/wchan
/boot/System.map-‘uname -r‘
/boot/System.map
/lib/modules/‘uname -r‘/System.map
/usr/src/linux/System.map
/System.map
- n
- Numeric output for WCHAN and USER. (including all types
of UID and GID)
- -w
- Wide output. Use this option twice for unlimited width.
- w
- Wide output. Use this option twice for unlimited width.
- --cols n
- set screen width
- --columns n
- set screen width
- --cumulative
- include some dead child process data (as a sum with the
parent)
- --forest
- ASCII art process tree
- --headers
- repeat header lines, one per page of output
- --no-headers
- print no header line at all
- --lines n
- set screen height
- --rows n
- set screen height
- --sort spec
- specify sorting order. Sorting syntax is
[+|-]key[,[+|-]key[,...]] Choose a multi-letter key
from the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section. The “+” is
optional since default direction is increasing
numerical or lexicographic order. Identical to k. For
example: ps jax --sort=uid,-ppid,+pid
- --width n
- set screen width
- H
- Show threads as if they were processes
- -L
- Show threads, possibly with LWP and NLWP columns
- -T
- Show threads, possibly with SPID column
- m
- Show threads after processes
- -m
- Show threads after processes
- L
- List all format specifiers.
- -V
- Print the procps version.
- V
- Print the procps version.
- --help
- Print a help message.
- --info
- Print debugging info.
- --version
- Print the procps version.
This ps works by reading the virtual files in /proc. This ps does not
need to be setuid kmem or have any privileges to run. Do not give this
ps any special permissions.
This ps needs access to namelist data for proper WCHAN display. For
kernels prior to 2.6, the System.map file must be installed.
CPU usage is currently expressed as the percentage of time spent
running during the entire lifetime of a process. This is not ideal,
and it does not conform to the standards that ps otherwise conforms to.
CPU usage is unlikely to add up to exactly 100%.
The SIZE and RSS fields don’t count some parts of a process including
the page tables, kernel stack, struct thread_info, and struct
task_struct. This is usually at least 20 KiB of memory that is always
resident. SIZE is the virtual size of the process (code+data+stack).
Processes marked <defunct> are dead processes (so-called “zombies")
that remain because their parent has not destroyed them properly. These
processes will be destroyed by init(8)
if the parent process exits.
The sum of these values is displayed in the “F” column, which is
provided by the flags output specifier.
- 1
- forked but didn’t exec
- 4
- used super-user privileges
Here are the different values that the s, stat and state output
specifiers (header “STAT” or “S") will display to describe the state of
a process.
- D
- Uninterruptible sleep (usually IO)
- R
- Running or runnable (on run queue)
- S
- Interruptible sleep (waiting for an event to complete)
- T
- Stopped, either by a job control signal or because it is being
traced.
- W
- paging (not valid since the 2.6.xx kernel)
- X
- dead (should never be seen)
- Z
- Defunct ("zombie") process, terminated but not reaped by its
parent.
For BSD formats and when the stat keyword is used, additional
characters may be displayed:
- <
- high-priority (not nice to other users)
- N
- low-priority (nice to other users)
- L
- has pages locked into memory (for real-time and custom IO)
- s
- is a session leader
- l
- is multi-threaded (using CLONE_THREAD, like NPTL pthreads do)
- +
- is in the foreground process group
These keys are used by the BSD O option (when it is used for sorting).
The GNU --sort option doesn’t use these keys, but the specifiers
described below in the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section. Note that
the values used in sorting are the internal values ps uses and not the
“cooked” values used in some of the output format fields (e.g. sorting
on tty will sort into device number, not according to the terminal name
displayed). Pipe ps output into the sort(1)
command if you want to sort
the cooked values.
- KEY
- LONG DESCRIPTION
c cmd simple name of executable
C pcpu cpu utilization
- f
- flags flags as in long format F field
g pgrp process group ID
- G
- tpgid controlling tty process group ID
- j
- cutime cumulative user time
- J
- cstime cumulative system time
k utime user time
- m
- min_flt number of minor page faults
- M
- maj_flt number of major page faults
- n
- cmin_flt cumulative minor page faults
- N
- cmaj_flt cumulative major page faults
o session session ID
p pid process ID
P ppid parent process ID
r rss resident set size
- R
- resident resident pages
- s
- size memory size in kilobytes
- S
- share amount of shared pages
- t
- tty the device number of the controlling tty
- T
- start_time time process was started
U uid user ID number
u user user name
- v
- vsize total VM size in kB
- y
- priority kernel scheduling priority
This ps supports AIX format descriptors, which work somewhat like the
formatting codes of printf(1)
and printf(3)
. For example, the normal
default output can be produced with this: ps -eo “%p %y %x %c".
The NORMAL codes are described in the next section.
- CODE
- NORMAL HEADER
%C pcpu %CPU
%G group GROUP
%P ppid PPID
%U user USER
%a args COMMAND
%c comm COMMAND
- %g
- rgroup RGROUP
%n nice NI
%p pid PID
%r pgid PGID
%t etime ELAPSED
%u ruser RUSER
%x time TIME
%y tty TTY
%z vsz VSZ
Here are the different keywords that may be used to control the output
format (e.g. with option -o) or to sort the selected processes with the
GNU-style --sort option.
For example: ps -eo pid,user,args --sort user
This version of ps tries to recognize most of the keywords used in
other implementations of ps.
The following user-defined format specifiers may contain spaces: args,
cmd, comm, command, fname, ucmd, ucomm, lstart, bsdstart, start.
Some keywords may not be available for sorting.
- %cpu
- %CPU cpu utilization of the process in “##.#” format.
Currently, it is the CPU time used divided by the time the
process has been running (cputime/realtime ratio),
expressed as a percentage. It will not add up to 100%
unless you are lucky. (alias pcpu).
- %mem
- %MEM ratio of the process’s resident set size to the physical
memory on the machine, expressed as a percentage.
(alias pmem).
- args
- COMMAND command with all its arguments as a string. Modifications
to the arguments may be shown. The output in this column
may contain spaces. A process marked <defunct> is partly
dead, waiting to be fully destroyed by its parent.
Sometimes the process args will be unavailable; when this
happens, ps will instead print the executable name in
brackets. (alias cmd, command). See also the comm format
keyword, the -f option, and the c option.
When specified last, this column will extend to the edge
of the display. If ps can not determine display width, as
when output is redirected (piped) into a file or another
command, the output width is undefined. (it may be 80,
unlimited, determined by the TERM variable, and so on) The
COLUMNS environment variable or --cols option may be used
to exactly determine the width in this case. The w or -w
option may be also be used to adjust width.
- blocked
- BLOCKED mask of the blocked signals, see signal(7)
. According to
the width of the field, a 32-bit or 64-bit mask in
hexadecimal format is displayed.
(alias sig_block, sigmask).
bsdstart START time the command started. If the process was started less
than 24 hours ago, the output format is “ HH:MM", else it
is “mmm dd” (where mmm is the three letters of the month).
- bsdtime
- TIME accumulated cpu time, user + system. The display format is
usually “MMM:SS", but can be shifted to the right if the
process used more than 999 minutes of cpu time.
- c
- C processor utilization. Currently, this is the integer
value of the percent usage over the lifetime of the
process. (see %cpu).
- caught
- CAUGHT mask of the caught signals, see signal(7)
. According to
the width of the field, a 32 or 64 bits mask in
hexadecimal format is displayed.
(alias sig_catch, sigcatch).
- class
- CLS scheduling class of the process. (alias policy, cls).
Field’s possible values are:
- -
- not reported
TS SCHED_OTHER
FF SCHED_FIFO
RR SCHED_RR
- ?
- unknown value
- cls
- CLS scheduling class of the process. (alias policy, class).
Field’s possible values are:
- -
- not reported
TS SCHED_OTHER
FF SCHED_FIFO
RR SCHED_RR
- ?
- unknown value
- cmd
- CMD see args. (alias args, command).
- comm
- COMMAND command name (only the executable name). Modifications to
the command name will not be shown. A process marked
<defunct> is partly dead, waiting to be fully destroyed by
its parent. The output in this column may contain spaces.
(alias ucmd, ucomm). See also the args format keyword, the
-f option, and the c option.
When specified last, this column will extend to the edge
of the display. If ps can not determine display width, as
when output is redirected (piped) into a file or another
command, the output width is undefined. (it may be 80,
unlimited, determined by the TERM variable, and so on) The
COLUMNS environment variable or --cols option may be used
to exactly determine the width in this case. The w or -w
option may be also be used to adjust width.
- command
- COMMAND see args. (alias args, cmd).
- cp
- CP per-mill (tenths of a percent) CPU usage. (see %cpu).
- cputime
- TIME cumulative CPU time, “[dd-]hh:mm:ss” format. (alias time).
- egid
- EGID effective group ID number of the process as a decimal
integer. (alias gid).
- egroup
- EGROUP effective group ID of the process. This will be the
textual group ID, if it can be obtained and the field
width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.
(alias group).
- eip
- EIP instruction pointer.
- esp
- ESP stack pointer.
- etime
- ELAPSED elapsed time since the process was started, in the
form [[dd-]hh:]mm:ss.
- euid
- EUID effective user ID. (alias uid).
- euser
- EUSER effective user name. This will be the textual user ID,
if it can be obtained and the field width permits,
or a decimal representation otherwise. The n option can be
used to force the decimal representation.
(alias uname, user).
- f
- F flags associated with the process, see the PROCESS FLAGS
section. (alias flag, flags).
- fgid
- FGID filesystem access group ID. (alias fsgid).
- fgroup
- FGROUP filesystem access group ID. This will be the textual
user ID, if it can be obtained and the field width
permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.
(alias fsgroup).
- flag
- F see f. (alias f, flags).
- flags
- F see f. (alias f, flag).
- fname
- COMMAND first 8 bytes of the base name of the process’s executable
file. The output in this column may contain spaces.
- fuid
- FUID filesystem access user ID. (alias fsuid).
- fuser
- FUSER filesystem access user ID. This will be the textual
user ID, if it can be obtained and the field width
permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.
- gid
- GID see egid. (alias egid).
- group
- GROUP see egroup. (alias egroup).
- ignored
- IGNORED mask of the ignored signals, see signal(7)
. According to
the width of the field, a 32-bit or 64-bit mask in
hexadecimal format is displayed. (alias sig_ignore,
sigignore).
- label
- LABEL security label, most commonly used for SE Linux context
data. This is for the Mandatory Access Control ("MAC")
found on high-security systems.
- lstart
- STARTED time the command started.
- lwp
- LWP lwp (light weight process, or thread) ID of the lwp being
reported. (alias spid, tid).
- ni
- NI nice value. This ranges from 19 (nicest) to -20 (not nice
to others), see nice(1)
. (alias nice).
- nice
- NI see ni. (alias ni).
- nlwp
- NLWP number of lwps (threads) in the process. (alias thcount).
- nwchan
- WCHAN address of the kernel function where the process is
sleeping (use wchan if you want the kernel function name).
Running tasks will display a dash (’-’) in this column.
- pcpu
- %CPU see %cpu. (alias %cpu).
- pending
- PENDING mask of the pending signals. See signal(7)
. Signals
pending on the process are distinct from signals pending
on individual threads. Use the m option or the -m option
to see both. According to the width of the field, a 32-bit
or 64-bit mask in hexadecimal format is displayed.
(alias sig).
- pgid
- PGID process group ID or, equivalently, the process ID of the
process group leader. (alias pgrp).
- pgrp
- PGRP see pgid. (alias pgid).
- pid
- PID process ID number of the process.
- pmem
- %MEM see %mem. (alias %mem).
- policy
- POL scheduling class of the process. (alias class, cls).
Possible values are:
- -
- not reported
TS SCHED_OTHER
FF SCHED_FIFO
RR SCHED_RR
- ?
- unknown value
- ppid
- PPID parent process ID.
- psr
- PSR processor that process is currently assigned to.
- rgid
- RGID real group ID.
- rgroup
- RGROUP real group name. This will be the textual group ID, if it
can be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal
representation otherwise.
- rip
- RIP 64-bit instruction pointer.
- rsp
- RSP 64-bit stack pointer.
- rss
- RSS resident set size, the non-swapped physical memory that a
task has used (in kiloBytes). (alias rssize, rsz).
- rssize
- RSS see rss. (alias rss, rsz).
- rsz
- RSZ see rss. (alias rss, rssize).
- rtprio
- RTPRIO realtime priority.
- ruid
- RUID real user ID.
- ruser
- RUSER real user ID. This will be the textual user ID, if it can
be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal
representation otherwise.
- s
- S minimal state display (one character). See section PROCESS
STATE CODES for the different values. See also stat if you
want additional information displayed. (alias state).
- sched
- SCH scheduling policy of the process. The policies
sched_other, sched_fifo, and sched_rr are respectively
displayed as 0, 1, and 2.
- sess
- SESS session ID or, equivalently, the process ID of the
session leader. (alias session, sid).
- sgi_p
- P processor that the process is currently executing on.
Displays “*” if the process is not currently running or
runnable.
- sgid
- SGID saved group ID. (alias svgid).
- sgroup
- SGROUP saved group name. This will be the textual group ID, if it
can be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal
representation otherwise.
- sid
- SID see sess. (alias sess, session).
- sig
- PENDING see pending. (alias pending, sig_pend).
sigcatch CAUGHT see caught. (alias caught, sig_catch).
sigignore IGNORED see ignored. (alias ignored, sig_ignore).
- sigmask
- BLOCKED see blocked. (alias blocked, sig_block).
- size
- SZ approximate amount of swap space that would be required if
the process were to dirty all writable pages and then be
swapped out. This number is very rough!
- spid
- SPID see lwp. (alias lwp, tid).
- stackp
- STACKP address of the bottom (start) of stack for the process.
- start
- STARTED time the command started. If the process was started less
than 24 hours ago, the output format is “HH:MM:SS", else
it is “ mmm dd” (where mmm is a three-letter month name).
- start_time START
- starting time or date of the process. Only the year will
be displayed if the process was not started the same year
ps was invoked, or “mmmdd” if it was not started the same
day, or “HH:MM” otherwise.
- stat
- STAT multi-character process state. See section PROCESS STATE
CODES for the different values meaning. See also s and
state if you just want the first character displayed.
- state
- S see s. (alias s).
- suid
- SUID saved user ID. (alias svuid).
- suser
- SUSER saved user name. This will be the textual user ID, if it
can be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal
representation otherwise. (alias svuser).
- svgid
- SVGID see sgid. (alias sgid).
- svuid
- SVUID see suid. (alias suid).
- sz
- SZ size in physical pages of the core image of the process.
This includes text, data, and stack space. Device mappings
are currently excluded; this is subject to change. See vsz
and rss.
- thcount
- THCNT see nlwp. (alias nlwp). number of kernel threads owned by
the process.
- tid
- TID see lwp. (alias lwp).
- time
- TIME cumulative CPU time, “[dd-]hh:mm:ss” format.
(alias cputime).
- tname
- TTY controlling tty (terminal). (alias tt, tty).
- tpgid
- TPGID ID of the foreground process group on the tty (terminal)
that the process is connected to, or -1 if the process is
not connected to a tty.
- tt
- TT controlling tty (terminal). (alias tname, tty).
- tty
- TT controlling tty (terminal). (alias tname, tt).
- ucmd
- CMD see comm. (alias comm, ucomm).
- ucomm
- COMMAND see comm. (alias comm, ucmd).
- uid
- UID see euid. (alias euid).
- uname
- USER see euser. (alias euser, user).
- user
- USER see euser. (alias euser, uname).
- vsize
- VSZ see vsz. (alias vsz).
- vsz
- VSZ virtual memory size of the process in KiB
(1024-byte units). Device mappings are currently excluded;
this is subject to change. (alias vsize).
- wchan
- WCHAN name of the kernel function in which the process is
sleeping, a “-” if the process is running, or a “*” if the
process is multi-threaded and ps is not displaying
threads.
The following environment variables could affect ps:
- COLUMNS
-
Override default display width.
- LINES
-
Override default display height.
- PS_PERSONALITY
-
Set to one of posix, old, linux, bsd, sun, digital...
(see section PERSONALITY below).
- CMD_ENV
-
Set to one of posix, old, linux, bsd, sun, digital...
(see section PERSONALITY below).
- I_WANT_A_BROKEN_PS
-
Force obsolete command line interpretation.
- LC_TIME
-
Date format.
- PS_COLORS
-
Not currently supported.
- PS_FORMAT
-
Default output format override. You may set this to a format string
of the type used for the -o option. The DefSysV and DefBSD values
are particularly useful.
- PS_SYSMAP
-
Default namelist (System.map) location.
- PS_SYSTEM_MAP
-
Default namelist (System.map) location.
- POSIXLY_CORRECT
-
Don’t find excuses to ignore bad “features".
- POSIX2
-
When set to “on", acts as POSIXLY_CORRECT.
- UNIX95
-
Don’t find excuses to ignore bad “features".
- _XPG
-
Cancel CMD_ENV=irix non-standard behavior.
In general, it is a bad idea to set these variables. The one exception
is CMD_ENV or PS_PERSONALITY, which could be set to Linux for normal
systems. Without that setting, ps follows the useless and bad parts of
the Unix98 standard.
- 390
- like the S/390 OpenEdition ps
- aix
- like AIX ps
- bsd
- like FreeBSD ps (totally non-standard)
- compaq
- like Digital Unix ps
- debian
- like the old Debian ps
- digital
- like Tru64 (was Digital Unix, was OSF/1) ps
- gnu
- like the old Debian ps
- hp
- like HP-UX ps
- hpux
- like HP-UX ps
- irix
- like Irix ps
- linux
- ***** RECOMMENDED *****
- old
- like the original Linux ps (totally non-standard)
- os390
- like OS/390 Open Edition ps
- posix
- standard
- s390
- like OS/390 Open Edition ps
- sco
- like SCO ps
- sgi
- like Irix ps
- solaris2
- like Solaris 2+ (SunOS 5) ps
- sunos4
- like SunOS 4 (Solaris 1) ps (totally non-standard)
- svr4
- standard
- sysv
- standard
- tru64
- like Tru64 (was Digital Unix, was OSF/1) ps
- unix
- standard
- unix95
- standard
- unix98
- standard
top(1)
, pgrep(1)
, pstree(1)
, proc(5)
.
This ps conforms to:
- 1
- Version 2 of the Single Unix Specification
- 2
- The Open Group Technical Standard Base Specifications, Issue 6
- 3
- IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition
- 4
- X/Open System Interfaces Extension [UP XSI]
- 5
- ISO/IEC 9945:2003
ps was originally written by Branko Lankester <lankeste@fwi.uva.nl>.
Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm@redhat.com> re-wrote it significantly to
use the proc filesystem, changing a few things in the process. Michael
Shields <mjshield@nyx.cs.du.edu> added the pid-list feature. Charles
Blake <cblake@bbn.com> added multi-level sorting, the dirent-style
library, the device name-to-number mmaped database, the approximate
binary search directly on System.map, and many code and documentation
cleanups. David Mossberger-Tang wrote the generic BFD support for
psupdate. Albert Cahalan <albert@users.sf.net> rewrote ps for full
Unix98 and BSD support, along with some ugly hacks for obsolete and
foreign syntax.
Please send bug reports to <procps-feedback@lists.sf.net>.
No subscription is required or suggested.
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