NAME
ps - report a snapshot of the current processes.
SYNOPSIS
ps [options]
DESCRIPTION
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.
EXAMPLES
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=
SIMPLE PROCESS SELECTION
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.
-A Select all processes. Identical to -e.
-a Select all processes except both session leaders (see
getsid(2)) and processes not associated with a
terminal.
-d Select all processes except session leaders.
--deselect Select all processes except those that fulfill the
specified conditions. (negates the selection) Identical
to -N.
-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.
-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.
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.
PROCESS SELECTION BY LIST
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
-123 Identical to --sid 123.
123 Identical to --pid 123.
-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).
-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.
--Group grplist Select by real group ID (RGID) or name. Identical to
-G.
--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.
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.
--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.
-s sesslist Select by session ID.
This selects the processes with a session ID specified
in sesslist.
--sid sesslist Select by session ID. Identical to -s.
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.
--tty ttylist Select by terminal. Identical to -t and t.
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).
-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.
--User userlist Select by real user ID (RUID) or name. Identical to -U.
--user userlist Select by effective user ID (EUID) or name. Identical
to -u and U.
OUTPUT FORMAT CONTROL
These options are used to choose the information displayed by ps. The
output may differ by personality.
-c Show different scheduler information for the -l option.
--context Display security context format. (for SE Linux)
-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.
-F extra full format. See the -f option, which -F implies.
--format format user-defined format. Identical to -o and o.
j BSD job control format.
-j jobs format
l display BSD long format.
-l long format. The -y option is often useful with this.
-M Add a column of security data. Identical to Z.
(for SE Linux)
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.
-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 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
X Register format.
-y Do not show flags; show rss in place of addr. This
option can only be used with -l.
Z Add a column of security data. Identical to -M.
(for SE Linux)
OUTPUT MODIFIERS
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
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.
--cols n set screen width
--columns n set screen width
--cumulative include some dead child process data (as a sum with the
parent)
e Show the environment after the command.
f ASCII-art process hierarchy (forest)
--forest ASCII art process tree
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.
-H show process hierarchy (forest)
--headers repeat header lines, one per page of output
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
--lines n set screen height
n Numeric output for WCHAN and USER. (including all types
of UID and GID)
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.
--no-headers print no header line at all. --no-heading is an alias
for this option.
--rows n set screen height
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.
--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
w Wide output. Use this option twice for unlimited width.
-w Wide output. Use this option twice for unlimited width.
--width n set screen width
THREAD DISPLAY
H Show threads as if they were processes
-L Show threads, possibly with LWP and NLWP columns
m Show threads after processes
-m Show threads after processes
-T Show threads, possibly with SPID column
OTHER INFORMATION
--help Print a help message.
--info Print debugging info.
L List all format specifiers.
V Print the procps version.
-V Print the procps version.
--version Print the procps version.
NOTES
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.
PROCESS FLAGS
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
PROCESS STATE CODES
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
OBSOLETE SORT KEYS
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
AIX FORMAT DESCRIPTORS
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
STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS
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.
CODE HEADER DESCRIPTION
%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). See also lstart, start,
start_time, and stime.
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
B SCHED_BATCH
ISO SCHED_ISO
IDL SCHED_IDLE
? 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
B SCHED_BATCH
ISO SCHED_ISO
IDL SCHED_IDLE
? 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. See also bsdstart, start,
start_time, and stime.
lwp LWP lwp (light weight process, or thread) ID of the lwp
being reported. (alias spid, tid).
maj_flt MAJFLT The number of major page faults that have occured
with this process.
min_flt MINFLT The number of minor page faults that have occured
with this process.
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
B SCHED_BATCH
ISO SCHED_ISO
IDL SCHED_IDLE
? unknown value
ppid PPID parent process ID.
pri PRI priority of the process. Higher number means lower
priority
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.
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_NORMAL), SCHED_FIFO, SCHED_RR,
SCHED_BATCH, SCHED_ISO, and SCHED_IDLE are
respectively displayed as 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
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 SIZE 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). See also lstart, bsdstart,
start_time, and stime.
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. See also
bsdstart, start, lstart, and stime.
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).
supgid SUPGID gid of supplementary groups, see getgroups(2).
supgrp SUPGRP names of supplementary groups, see getgroups(2).
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.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
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.
PERSONALITY
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
SEE ALSO
top(1), pgrep(1), pstree(1), proc(5).
STANDARDS
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
AUTHOR
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.