PS

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

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:

-a

Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.

-C

Change the way the cpu percentage is calculated by using a ``raw'' cpu calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this normally has no effect).

-h

Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one header per page of information.

-j

Print information associated with the following keywords: user, pid, ppid, pgid, sess, jobc, state, tt, time and command.

-L

List the set of available keywords.

-l

Display information associated with the following keywords: uid, pid, ppid, cpu, pri, nice, vsz, rss, wchan, state, tt, time and command.

-M

Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core instead of the default ``/dev/kmem ''

-m

Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID

-N

Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default ``/vmunix ''

-O

Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specifed, after the process ID in the default information display. Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header.

-o

Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specifed. Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header.

-p

Display information associated with the specified process ID

-r

Sort by current cpu usage, instead of by process ID

-S

Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited children to their parent process.

-T

Display information about processes attached to the device associated with the standard input.

-t

Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal device.

-u

Display information associated with the following keywords: user, pid, %cpu, %mem, vsz, rss, tt, state, start, time and command. The -u option implies the -r option.

-v

Display information associated with the following keywords: pid, state, time, sl, re, pagein, vsz, rss, lim, tsiz, trss, %cpu, %mem and command. The -v option implies the -m option.

-W

Extract swap information from the specified file instead of the default ``/dev/swap ''

-w

Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which is your window size. If the -w option is specified more than once, ps will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.

-x

Display information about processes without controlling terminals.

A complete list of the available keywords are listed below. Some of these keywords are further specifed as follows:

%cpu

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

The percentage of real memory used by this process.

flags

The flags (in hexadecimal) associated with the process as in the include file Aq Pa sys/proc.h :

SLOAD Ta 0x0000001     in core

SSYS Ta 0x0000002       swapper or pager process

SLOCK Ta 0x0000004process being swapped out

SSWAP Ta 0x0000008save area flag

STRC Ta 0x0000010process is being traced

SWTED Ta 0x0000020another tracing flag

SSINTR Ta 0x0000040sleep is interruptible

SPAGE Ta 0x0000080process in page wait state

SKEEP Ta 0x0000100another flag to prevent swap out

SOMASK Ta 0x0000200restore old mask after taking signal

SWEXIT Ta 0x0000400working on exiting

SPHYSIO Ta 0x0000800doing physical

I/O

SVFORK Ta 0x0001000process resulted from

vfork(2)

SVFDONE Ta 0x0002000    another

vfork
flag

SNOVM Ta 0x0004000      no vm, parent in a

vfork

SPAGV Ta 0x0008000      init data space on demand, from vnode

SSEQL Ta 0x0010000        user warned of sequential vm behavior

SUANOM Ta 0x0020000user warned of random vm behavior

STIMO Ta 0x0040000timing out during sleep

SNOCLDSTOP Ta 0x0080000no

SIGCHLD when children stop

SCTTY Ta 0x0100000      has a controlling terminal

SOWEUPC Ta 0x0200000 owe process an addupc() call at next ast

SSEL Ta 0x0400000selecting; wakeup/waiting danger

SEXEC Ta 0x0800000process called

exec(2)

SHPUX Ta 0x1000000      \*(tNHP-UX\*(sP process

(HPUXCOMPAT )

SULOCK Ta 0x2000000        locked in core after swap error

SPTECHG Ta 0x4000000pte's for process have changed

lim

The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to
setrlimit(2).

lstart

The exact time the command started, using the ``%C'' format described in strftime(3).

nice

The process scheduling increment (see setpriority(2)).

rss

the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).

start

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 strftime(3). If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is displayed using the ``%a6.15p'' format. Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format.

state

The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example, ``RWNA '' The first letter indicates the run state of the process:

D

Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptable) wait.

I

Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).

P

Marks a process in page wait.

R

Marks a runnable process.

S

Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.

T

Marks a stopped process.

Z

Marks a dead process (a ``zombie'').

Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state information:

+

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 swapped.

A

the process has asked for random page replacement ( VA_ANOM from vadvise(2), for example, lisp(1) in a garbage collect).

E

The process is trying to exit.

L

The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw I/O )

N

The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see setpriority(2)).

S

The process has asked for FIFO page replacement ( VA_SEQL from vadvise(2), for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to sequentially address voluminous data).

s

The process is a session leader.

V

The process is suspended during a vfork.

W

The process is swapped out.

X

The process is being traced or debugged.

tt

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).

wchan

The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits. When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, for example, 0x80324000 prints as 324000.

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.  

KEYWORDS

%cpu

percentage cpu usage (alias pcpu)

%mem

percentage memory usage (alias pmem)

acflag

accounting flag (alias acflg)

command

command and arguments

cpu

short-term cpu usage factor (for scheduling)

flags

the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)

inblk

total blocks read (alias inblock)

jobc

job control count

ktrace

tracing flags

ktracep

tracing vnode

lim

memoryuse limit

logname

login name of user who started the process

lstart

time started

majflt

total page faults

minflt

total page reclaims

msgrcv

total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)

msgsnd

total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)

nice

nice value (alias ni)

nivcsw

total involuntary context switches

nsigs

total signals taken (alias nsignals)

nswap

total swaps in/out

nvcsw

total voluntary context switches

nwchan

wait channel (as an address)

oublk

total blocks written (alias oublock)

p_ru

resource usage (valid only for zombie)

paddr

swap address

pagein

pageins (same as majflt)

pgid

process group number

pid

process ID

poip

pageouts in progress

ppid

parent process ID

pri

scheduling priority

re

core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)

rgid

real group ID

rlink

reverse link on run queue, or 0

rss

resident set size

rsz

resident set size + (text size / text use count) (alias rssize)

ruid

real user ID

ruser

user name (from ruid)

sess

session pointer

sig

pending signals (alias pending)

sigcatch

caught signals (alias caught)

sigignore

ignored signals (alias ignored)

sigmask

blocked signals (alias blocked)

sl

sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)

start

time started

state

symbolic process state (alias stat)

svgid

saved gid from a setgid executable

svuid

saved uid from a setuid executable

tdev

control terminal device number

time

accumulated cpu time, user + system (alias cputime)

tpgid

control terminal process group ID

trss

text resident set size (in Kbytes)

tsess

control terminal session pointer

tsiz

text size (in Kbytes)

tt

control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)

tty

full name of control terminal

uprocp

process pointer

ucomm

name to be used for accounting

uid

effective user ID

upr

scheduling priority on return from system call (alias usrpri)

user

user name (from uid)

vsz

virtual size in Kbytes (alias vsize)

wchan

wait channel (as a symbolic name)

xstat

exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)

FILES

/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

SEE ALSO

BUGS

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

KEYWORDS

FILES

SEE ALSO

BUGS