xref: /freebsd/bin/ps/ps.1 (revision 282a3889ebf826db9839be296ff1dd903f6d6d6e)
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29.\"     @(#)ps.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
30.\" $FreeBSD$
31.\"
32.Dd August 21, 2006
33.Dt PS 1
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm ps
37.Nd process status
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.Nm
40.Op Fl aCcefHhjlmrSTuvwXxZ
41.Op Fl O Ar fmt | Fl o Ar fmt
42.Op Fl G Ar gid Ns Op , Ns Ar gid Ns Ar ...
43.Op Fl M Ar core
44.Op Fl N Ar system
45.Op Fl p Ar pid Ns Op , Ns Ar pid Ns Ar ...
46.Op Fl t Ar tty Ns Op , Ns Ar tty Ns Ar ...
47.Op Fl U Ar user Ns Op , Ns Ar user Ns Ar ...
48.Nm
49.Op Fl L
50.Sh DESCRIPTION
51The
52.Nm
53utility
54displays a header line, followed by lines containing information about
55all of your
56processes that have controlling terminals.
57.Pp
58A different set of processes can be selected for display by using any
59combination of the
60.Fl a , G , p , T , t ,
61and
62.Fl U
63options.
64If more than one of these options are given, then
65.Nm
66will select all processes which are matched by at least one of the
67given options.
68.Pp
69For the processes which have been selected for display,
70.Nm
71will usually display one line per process.
72The
73.Fl H
74option may result in multiple output lines (one line per thread) for
75some processes.
76By default all of these output lines are sorted first by controlling
77terminal, then by process ID.
78The
79.Fl m , r , u ,
80and
81.Fl v
82options will change the sort order.
83If more than one sorting option was given, then the selected processes
84will be sorted by the last sorting option which was specified.
85.Pp
86For the processes which have been selected for display, the information
87to display is selected based on a set of keywords (see the
88.Fl L , O ,
89and
90.Fl o
91options).
92The default output format includes, for each process, the process' ID,
93controlling terminal, CPU time (including both user and system time),
94state, and associated command.
95.Pp
96The process file system (see
97.Xr procfs 5 )
98should be mounted when
99.Nm
100is executed, otherwise not all information will be available.
101.Pp
102The options are as follows:
103.Bl -tag -width indent
104.It Fl a
105Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.
106This will skip any processes which do not have a controlling terminal,
107unless the
108.Fl x
109option is also specified.
110This can be disabled by setting the
111.Va security.bsd.see_other_uids
112sysctl to zero.
113.It Fl c
114Change the
115.Dq command
116column output to just contain the executable name,
117rather than the full command line.
118.It Fl C
119Change the way the CPU percentage is calculated by using a
120.Dq raw
121CPU calculation that ignores
122.Dq resident
123time (this normally has
124no effect).
125.It Fl e
126Display the environment as well.
127.It Fl f
128Show commandline and environment information about swapped out processes.
129This option is honored only if the UID of the user is 0.
130.It Fl G
131Display information about processes which are running with the specified
132real group IDs.
133.It Fl H
134Show all of the
135.Em kernel visible
136threads associated with each process.
137Depending on the threading package that
138is in use, this may show only the process, only the kernel scheduled entities,
139or all of the process threads.
140.It Fl h
141Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one
142header per page of information.
143.It Fl j
144Print information associated with the following keywords:
145.Cm user , pid , ppid , pgid , sid , jobc , state , tt , time ,
146and
147.Cm command .
148.It Fl L
149List the set of keywords available for the
150.Fl O
151and
152.Fl o
153options.
154.It Fl l
155Display information associated with the following keywords:
156.Cm uid , pid , ppid , cpu , pri , nice , vsz , rss , mwchan , state ,
157.Cm tt , time ,
158and
159.Cm command .
160.It Fl M
161Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core
162instead of the currently running system.
163.It Fl m
164Sort by memory usage, instead of the combination of controlling
165terminal and process ID.
166.It Fl N
167Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default,
168which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
169.It Fl O
170Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list
171of keywords specified, after the process ID,
172in the default information
173display.
174Keywords may be appended with an equals
175.Pq Ql =
176sign and a string.
177This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
178the standard header.
179.It Fl o
180Display information associated with the space or comma separated
181list of keywords specified.
182The last keyword in the list may be appended with an equals
183.Pq Ql =
184sign and a string that spans the rest of the argument, and can contain
185space and comma characters.
186This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
187the standard header.
188Multiple keywords may also be given in the form of more than one
189.Fl o
190option.
191So the header texts for multiple keywords can be changed.
192If all keywords have empty header texts, no header line is written.
193.It Fl p
194Display information about processes which match the specified process IDs.
195.It Fl r
196Sort by current CPU usage, instead of the combination of controlling
197terminal and process ID.
198.It Fl S
199Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited
200children to their parent process.
201.It Fl T
202Display information about processes attached to the device associated
203with the standard input.
204.It Fl t
205Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal
206devices.
207.It Fl U
208Display the processes belonging to the specified usernames.
209.It Fl u
210Display information associated with the following keywords:
211.Cm user , pid , %cpu , %mem , vsz , rss , tt , state , start , time ,
212and
213.Cm command .
214The
215.Fl u
216option implies the
217.Fl r
218option.
219.It Fl v
220Display information associated with the following keywords:
221.Cm pid , state , time , sl , re , pagein , vsz , rss , lim , tsiz ,
222.Cm %cpu , %mem ,
223and
224.Cm command .
225The
226.Fl v
227option implies the
228.Fl m
229option.
230.It Fl w
231Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which
232is your window size.
233If the
234.Fl w
235option is specified more than once,
236.Nm
237will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.
238.It Fl X
239When displaying processes matched by other options, skip any processes
240which do not have a controlling terminal.
241.It Fl x
242When displaying processes matched by other options, include processes
243which do not have a controlling terminal.
244This is the opposite of the
245.Fl X
246option.
247If both
248.Fl X
249and
250.Fl x
251are specified in the same command, then
252.Nm
253will use the one which was specified last.
254.It Fl Z
255Add
256.Xr mac 4
257label to the list of keywords for which
258.Nm
259will display information.
260.El
261.Pp
262A complete list of the available keywords are listed below.
263Some of these keywords are further specified as follows:
264.Bl -tag -width lockname
265.It Cm %cpu
266The CPU utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to
267a minute of previous (real) time.
268Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may
269be very young) it is possible for the sum of all
270.Cm %cpu
271fields to exceed 100%.
272.It Cm %mem
273The percentage of real memory used by this process.
274.It Cm flags
275The flags associated with the process as in
276the include file
277.In sys/proc.h :
278.Bl -column P_STOPPED_SINGLE 0x4000000
279.It Dv "P_ADVLOCK" Ta No "0x00001	Process may hold a POSIX advisory lock"
280.It Dv "P_CONTROLT" Ta No "0x00002	Has a controlling terminal"
281.It Dv "P_KTHREAD" Ta No "0x00004	Kernel thread"
282.It Dv "P_NOLOAD" Ta No "0x00008	Ignore during load avg calculations"
283.It Dv "P_PPWAIT" Ta No "0x00010	Parent is waiting for child to exec/exit"
284.It Dv "P_PROFIL" Ta No "0x00020	Has started profiling"
285.It Dv "P_STOPPROF" Ta No "0x00040	Has thread in requesting to stop prof"
286.It Dv "P_SUGID" Ta No "0x00100		Had set id privileges since last exec"
287.It Dv "P_SYSTEM" Ta No "0x00200	System proc: no sigs, stats or swapping"
288.It Dv "P_SINGLE_EXIT" Ta No "0x00400	Threads suspending should exit, not wait"
289.It Dv "P_TRACED" Ta No "0x00800	Debugged process being traced"
290.It Dv "P_WAITED" Ta No "0x01000	Someone is waiting for us"
291.It Dv "P_WEXIT" Ta No "0x02000		Working on exiting"
292.It Dv "P_EXEC" Ta No "0x04000		Process called exec"
293.It Dv "P_SA" Ta No "0x08000		Using scheduler activations"
294.It Dv "P_CONTINUED" Ta No "0x10000	Proc has continued from a stopped state"
295.It Dv "P_STOPPED_SIG" Ta No "0x20000	Stopped due to SIGSTOP/SIGTSTP"
296.It Dv "P_STOPPED_TRACE" Ta No "0x40000	Stopped because of tracing"
297.It Dv "P_STOPPED_SINGLE" Ta No "0x80000	Only one thread can continue"
298.It Dv "P_PROTECTED" Ta No "0x100000	Do not kill on memory overcommit"
299.It Dv "P_SIGEVENT" Ta No "0x200000	Process pending signals changed"
300.It Dv "P_JAILED" Ta No "0x1000000	Process is in jail"
301.It Dv "P_INEXEC" Ta No "0x4000000	Process is in execve()"
302.El
303.It Cm label
304The MAC label of the process.
305.It Cm lim
306The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to
307.Xr setrlimit 2 .
308.It Cm lstart
309The exact time the command started, using the
310.Ql %c
311format described in
312.Xr strftime 3 .
313.It Cm lockname
314The name of the lock that the process is currently blocked on.
315If the name is invalid or unknown, then
316.Dq ???\&
317is displayed.
318.It Cm logname
319The login name associated with the session the process is in (see
320.Xr getlogin 2 ) .
321.It Cm mwchan
322The event name if the process is blocked normally, or the lock name if
323the process is blocked on a lock.
324See the wchan and lockname keywords
325for details.
326.It Cm nice
327The process scheduling increment (see
328.Xr setpriority 2 ) .
329.It Cm rss
330the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).
331.It Cm start
332The time the command started.
333If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is
334displayed using the
335.Dq Li %l:ps.1p
336format described in
337.Xr strftime 3 .
338If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is
339displayed using the
340.Dq Li %a6.15p
341format.
342Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the
343.Dq Li %e%b%y
344format.
345.It Cm state
346The state is given by a sequence of characters, for example,
347.Dq Li RWNA .
348The first character indicates the run state of the process:
349.Pp
350.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
351.It Li D
352Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait.
353.It Li I
354Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
355.It Li L
356Marks a process that is waiting to acquire a lock.
357.It Li R
358Marks a runnable process.
359.It Li S
360Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
361.It Li T
362Marks a stopped process.
363.It Li W
364Marks an idle interrupt thread.
365.It Li Z
366Marks a dead process (a
367.Dq zombie ) .
368.El
369.Pp
370Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state
371information:
372.Pp
373.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
374.It Li +
375The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.
376.It Li <
377The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
378.It Li E
379The process is trying to exit.
380.It Li J
381Marks a process which is in
382.Xr jail 2 .
383The hostname of the prison can be found in
384.Pa /proc/ Ns Ao Ar pid Ac Ns Pa /status .
385.It Li L
386The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw
387.Tn I/O ) .
388.It Li N
389The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see
390.Xr setpriority 2 ) .
391.It Li s
392The process is a session leader.
393.It Li V
394The process is suspended during a
395.Xr vfork 2 .
396.It Li W
397The process is swapped out.
398.It Li X
399The process is being traced or debugged.
400.El
401.It Cm tt
402An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any.
403The abbreviation consists of the three letters following
404.Pa /dev/tty ,
405or, for the console,
406.Dq Li con .
407This is followed by a
408.Ql -
409if the process can no longer reach that
410controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked).
411.It Cm wchan
412The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits.
413When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is
414trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, for example, 0x80324000 prints
415as 324000.
416.El
417.Pp
418When printing using the command keyword, a process that has exited and
419has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie)
420is listed as
421.Dq Li <defunct> ,
422and a process which is blocked while trying
423to exit is listed as
424.Dq Li <exiting> .
425If the arguments cannot be located (usually because it has not been set, as is
426the case of system processes and/or kernel threads) the command name is printed
427within square brackets.
428The
429.Nm
430utility first tries to obtain the arguments cached by the kernel (if they were
431shorter than the value of the
432.Va kern.ps_arg_cache_limit
433sysctl).
434The process can change the arguments shown with
435.Xr setproctitle 3 .
436Otherwise,
437.Nm
438makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the
439process was created by examining memory or the swap area.
440The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process
441is entitled to destroy this information.
442The ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.
443If the arguments are unavailable or do not agree with the ucomm keyword,
444the value for the ucomm keyword is appended to the arguments in parentheses.
445.Sh KEYWORDS
446The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their
447meanings.
448Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms).
449.Pp
450.Bl -tag -width ".Cm sigignore" -compact
451.It Cm %cpu
452percentage CPU usage (alias
453.Cm pcpu )
454.It Cm %mem
455percentage memory usage (alias
456.Cm pmem )
457.It Cm acflag
458accounting flag (alias
459.Cm acflg )
460.It Cm args
461command and arguments
462.It Cm comm
463command
464.It Cm command
465command and arguments
466.It Cm cpu
467short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling)
468.It Cm etime
469elapsed running time
470.It Cm flags
471the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias
472.Cm f )
473.It Cm inblk
474total blocks read (alias
475.Cm inblock )
476.It Cm jid
477jail ID
478.It Cm jobc
479job control count
480.It Cm ktrace
481tracing flags
482.It Cm label
483MAC label
484.It Cm lim
485memoryuse limit
486.It Cm lockname
487lock currently blocked on (as a symbolic name)
488.It Cm logname
489login name of user who started the session
490.It Cm lstart
491time started
492.It Cm majflt
493total page faults
494.It Cm minflt
495total page reclaims
496.It Cm msgrcv
497total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)
498.It Cm msgsnd
499total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)
500.It Cm mwchan
501wait channel or lock currently blocked on
502.It Cm nice
503nice value (alias
504.Cm ni )
505.It Cm nivcsw
506total involuntary context switches
507.It Cm nsigs
508total signals taken (alias
509.Cm nsignals )
510.It Cm nswap
511total swaps in/out
512.It Cm nvcsw
513total voluntary context switches
514.It Cm nwchan
515wait channel (as an address)
516.It Cm oublk
517total blocks written (alias
518.Cm oublock )
519.It Cm paddr
520swap address
521.It Cm pagein
522pageins (same as majflt)
523.It Cm pgid
524process group number
525.It Cm pid
526process ID
527.It Cm poip
528pageouts in progress
529.It Cm ppid
530parent process ID
531.It Cm pri
532scheduling priority
533.It Cm re
534core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
535.It Cm rgid
536real group ID
537.It Cm rgroup
538group name (from rgid)
539.It Cm rlink
540reverse link on run queue, or 0
541.It Cm rss
542resident set size
543.It Cm rtprio
544realtime priority (101 = not a realtime process)
545.It Cm ruid
546real user ID
547.It Cm ruser
548user name (from ruid)
549.It Cm sid
550session ID
551.It Cm sig
552pending signals (alias
553.Cm pending )
554.It Cm sigcatch
555caught signals (alias
556.Cm caught )
557.It Cm sigignore
558ignored signals (alias
559.Cm ignored )
560.It Cm sigmask
561blocked signals (alias
562.Cm blocked )
563.It Cm sl
564sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
565.It Cm start
566time started
567.It Cm state
568symbolic process state (alias
569.Cm stat )
570.It Cm svgid
571saved gid from a setgid executable
572.It Cm svuid
573saved UID from a setuid executable
574.It Cm tdev
575control terminal device number
576.It Cm time
577accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias
578.Cm cputime )
579.It Cm tpgid
580control terminal process group ID
581.\".It Cm trss
582.\"text resident set size (in Kbytes)
583.It Cm tsid
584control terminal session ID
585.It Cm tsiz
586text size (in Kbytes)
587.It Cm tt
588control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
589.It Cm tty
590full name of control terminal
591.It Cm uprocp
592process pointer
593.It Cm ucomm
594name to be used for accounting
595.It Cm uid
596effective user ID
597.It Cm upr
598scheduling priority on return from system call (alias
599.Cm usrpri )
600.It Cm user
601user name (from UID)
602.It Cm vsz
603virtual size in Kbytes (alias
604.Cm vsize )
605.It Cm wchan
606wait channel (as a symbolic name)
607.It Cm xstat
608exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)
609.El
610.Sh ENVIRONMENT
611The following environment variables affect the execution of
612.Nm :
613.Bl -tag -width ".Ev COLUMNS"
614.It Ev COLUMNS
615If set, specifies the user's preferred output width in column positions.
616By default,
617.Nm
618attempts to automatically determine the terminal width.
619.El
620.Sh FILES
621.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /boot/kernel/kernel" -compact
622.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
623default system namelist
624.It Pa /proc
625the mount point of
626.Xr procfs 5
627.El
628.Sh SEE ALSO
629.Xr kill 1 ,
630.Xr pgrep 1 ,
631.Xr pkill 1 ,
632.Xr w 1 ,
633.Xr kvm 3 ,
634.Xr strftime 3 ,
635.Xr mac 4 ,
636.Xr procfs 5 ,
637.Xr pstat 8 ,
638.Xr sysctl 8 ,
639.Xr mutex 9
640.Sh STANDARDS
641For historical reasons, the
642.Nm
643utility under
644.Fx
645supports a different set of options from what is described by
646.St -p1003.2 ,
647and what is supported on
648.No non- Ns Bx
649operating systems.
650.Sh HISTORY
651The
652.Nm
653command appeared in
654.At v4 .
655.Sh BUGS
656Since
657.Nm
658cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled
659process, the information it displays can never be exact.
660.Pp
661The
662.Nm
663utility does not correctly display argument lists containing multibyte
664characters.
665