xref: /freebsd/bin/ps/ps.1 (revision 7660b554bc59a07be0431c17e0e33815818baa69)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
13.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
14.\"	This product includes software developed by the University of
15.\"	California, Berkeley and its contributors.
16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
17.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
18.\"    without specific prior written permission.
19.\"
20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
30.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
31.\"
32.\"     @(#)ps.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd April 18, 1994
36.Dt PS 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm ps
40.Nd process status
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Op Fl aCcefHhjlmrSTuvwxZ
44.Op Fl M Ar core
45.Op Fl N Ar system
46.Op Fl O Ar fmt
47.Op Fl o Ar fmt
48.Op Fl p Ar pid
49.Op Fl t Ar tty
50.Oo Fl U Ar username Ns Xo
51.Op , Ns Ar username Ns No ...
52.Xc
53.Oc
54.Nm
55.Op Fl L
56.Sh DESCRIPTION
57The
58.Nm
59utility
60displays a header line followed by lines containing information about your
61processes that have controlling terminals.
62This information is sorted by controlling terminal, then by process
63.Tn ID .
64.Pp
65The information displayed is selected based on a set of keywords (see the
66.Fl L
67.Fl O
68and
69.Fl o
70options).
71The default output format includes, for each process, the process'
72.Tn ID ,
73controlling terminal, cpu time (including both user and system time),
74state, and associated command.
75.Pp
76The process file system (see
77.Xr procfs 5 )
78should be mounted when
79.Nm
80is executed, otherwise not all information will be available.
81.Pp
82The options are as follows:
83.Bl -tag -width indent
84.It Fl a
85Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.
86This can be disabled by setting the
87.Va security.bsd.see_other_uids
88sysctl to zero.
89.It Fl c
90Change the ``command'' column output to just contain the executable name,
91rather than the full command line.
92.It Fl C
93Change the way the cpu percentage is calculated by using a ``raw''
94cpu calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this normally has
95no effect).
96.It Fl e
97Display the environment as well.
98.It Fl f
99Show commandline and environment information about swapped out processes.
100This option is honored only if the uid of the user is 0.
101.It Fl H
102Show all of the
103.Em kernel visible
104threads associated with each process.  Depending on the threading package that
105is in use, this may show only the process, only the kernel scheduled entities,
106or all of the process threads.
107.It Fl h
108Repeat the information header as often as necessary to guarantee one
109header per page of information.
110.It Fl j
111Print information associated with the following keywords:
112user, pid, ppid, pgid, jobc, state, tt, time and command.
113.It Fl L
114List the set of available keywords.
115.It Fl l
116Display information associated with the following keywords:
117uid, pid, ppid, cpu, pri, nice, vsz, rss, mwchan, state, tt, time
118and command.
119.It Fl M
120Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core
121instead of the default
122.Pa /dev/kmem .
123.It Fl m
124Sort by memory usage, instead of by process
125.Tn ID .
126.It Fl N
127Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default
128.Pa /boot/kernel/kernel .
129.It Fl O
130Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list
131of keywords specified, after the process
132.Tn ID ,
133in the default information
134display.
135Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
136This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
137the standard header.
138.It Fl o
139Display information associated with the space or comma separated
140list of keywords specified.
141Multiple keywords may also be given in the form of more than one
142.Fl o
143option.
144Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string.
145This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
146the standard header.
147.It Fl p
148Display information associated with the specified process
149.Tn ID .
150.It Fl r
151Sort by current cpu usage, instead of by process
152.Tn ID .
153.It Fl S
154Change the way the process time is calculated by summing all exited
155children to their parent process.
156.It Fl T
157Display information about processes attached to the device associated
158with the standard input.
159.It Fl t
160Display information about processes attached to the specified terminal
161device.
162.It Fl U
163Display the processes belonging to the specified
164.Ar username Ns (s) .
165.It Fl u
166Display information associated with the following keywords:
167user, pid, %cpu, %mem, vsz, rss, tt, state, start, time and command.
168The
169.Fl u
170option implies the
171.Fl r
172option.
173.It Fl v
174Display information associated with the following keywords:
175pid, state, time, sl, re, pagein, vsz, rss, lim, tsiz,
176%cpu, %mem and command.
177The
178.Fl v
179option implies the
180.Fl m
181option.
182.It Fl w
183Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which
184is your window size.
185If the
186.Fl w
187option is specified more than once,
188.Nm
189will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.
190.It Fl x
191Display information about processes without controlling terminals.
192.It Fl Z
193Add label to the list of keywords for which
194.Nm
195will display information.
196.El
197.Pp
198A complete list of the available keywords are listed below.
199Some of these keywords are further specified as follows:
200.Bl -tag -width lockname
201.It %cpu
202The cpu utilization of the process; this is a decaying average over up to
203a minute of previous (real) time.
204Since the time base over which this is computed varies (since processes may
205be very young) it is possible for the sum of all
206.Tn \&%CPU
207fields to exceed 100%.
208.It %mem
209The percentage of real memory used by this process.
210.It flags
211The flags associated with the process as in
212the include file
213.In sys/proc.h :
214.Bl -column P_NOCLDSTOP P_NOCLDSTOP
215.It Dv "P_ADVLOCK" Ta No "0x00001	Process may hold a POSIX advisory lock"
216.It Dv "P_CONTROLT" Ta No "0x00002	Has a controlling terminal"
217.It Dv "P_INMEM" Ta No "0x00004		Loaded into memory"
218.It Dv "P_NOCLDSTOP" Ta No "0x00008	No SIGCHLD when children stop"
219.It Dv "P_PPWAIT" Ta No "0x00010	Parent is waiting for child to exec/exit"
220.It Dv "P_PROFIL" Ta No "0x00020	Has started profiling"
221.It Dv "P_SELECT" Ta No "0x00040	Selecting; wakeup/waiting danger"
222.It Dv "P_SINTR" Ta No "0x00080		Sleep is interruptible"
223.It Dv "P_SUGID" Ta No "0x00100		Had set id privileges since last exec"
224.It Dv "P_SYSTEM" Ta No "0x00200	System proc: no sigs, stats or swapping"
225.It Dv "P_TIMEOUT" Ta No "0x00400	Timing out during sleep"
226.It Dv "P_TRACED" Ta No "0x00800	Debugged process being traced"
227.It Dv "P_WAITED" Ta No "0x01000	Debugging process has waited for child"
228.It Dv "P_WEXIT" Ta No "0x02000		Working on exiting"
229.It Dv "P_EXEC" Ta No "0x04000		Process called exec"
230.It Dv "P_OWEUPC" Ta No "0x20000	Owe process an addupc() call at next ast"
231.It Dv "P_SWAPPING" Ta No "0x40000	Process is being swapped"
232.El
233.It label
234The MAC label of the process.
235.It lim
236The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to
237.Xr setrlimit 2 .
238.It lstart
239The exact time the command started, using the ``%c'' format described in
240.Xr strftime 3 .
241.It lockname
242The name of the lock that the process is currently blocked on.
243If the name is invalid or unknown, then
244.Dq ???\&
245is displayed.
246.It mwchan
247The event name if the process is blocked normally, or the lock name if
248the process is blocked on a lock.
249See the wchan and lockname keywords
250for details.
251.It nice
252The process scheduling increment (see
253.Xr setpriority 2 ) .
254.It rss
255the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte units).
256.It start
257The time the command started.
258If the command started less than 24 hours ago, the start time is
259displayed using the ``%l:ps.1p'' format described in
260.Xr strftime 3 .
261If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is
262displayed using the ``%a6.15p'' format.
263Otherwise, the start time is displayed using the ``%e%b%y'' format.
264.It state
265The state is given by a sequence of characters, for example,
266.Dq Tn RWNA .
267The first character indicates the run state of the process:
268.Pp
269.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
270.It D
271Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait.
272.It I
273Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
274.It J
275Marks a process which is in
276.Xr jail 2 .
277The hostname of the prison can be found in
278.Ql /proc/<pid>/status .
279.It L
280Marks a process that is waiting to acquire a lock.
281.It R
282Marks a runnable process.
283.It S
284Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
285.It T
286Marks a stopped process.
287.It Z
288Marks a dead process (a ``zombie'').
289.El
290.Pp
291Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional state
292information:
293.Pp
294.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
295.It +
296The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.
297.It <
298The process has raised
299.Tn CPU
300scheduling priority.
301.It >
302The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is
303currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not
304swapped.
305.It A
306the process has asked for random page replacement
307.Pf ( Dv MADV_RANDOM ,
308from
309.Xr madvise 2 ,
310for example, lisp in a garbage collect).
311.It E
312The process is trying to exit.
313.It L
314The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw
315.Tn I/O ) .
316.It N
317The process has reduced
318.Tn CPU
319scheduling priority (see
320.Xr setpriority 2 ) .
321.It S
322The process has asked for
323.Tn FIFO
324page replacement
325.Pf ( Dv MADV_SEQUENTIAL ,
326from
327.Xr madvise 2 ,
328for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to
329sequentially address voluminous data).
330.It s
331The process is a session leader.
332.It V
333The process is suspended during a
334.Xr vfork 2 .
335.It W
336The process is swapped out.
337.It X
338The process is being traced or debugged.
339.El
340.It tt
341An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any.
342The abbreviation consists of the three letters following
343.Pa /dev/tty ,
344or, for the console, ``con''.
345This is followed by a ``-'' if the process can no longer reach that
346controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked).
347.It wchan
348The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits.
349When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is
350trimmed off and the result is printed in hex, for example, 0x80324000 prints
351as 324000.
352.El
353.Pp
354When printing using the command keyword, a process that has exited and
355has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie)
356is listed as ``<defunct>'', and a process which is blocked while trying
357to exit is listed as ``<exiting>''.
358The
359.Nm
360utility
361makes an educated guess as to the file name and arguments given when the
362process was created by examining memory or the swap area.
363The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process
364is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended
365on too much.
366The ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.
367.Sh KEYWORDS
368The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their
369meanings.
370Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms).
371.Pp
372.Bl -tag -width sigignore -compact
373.It %cpu
374percentage cpu usage (alias pcpu)
375.It %mem
376percentage memory usage (alias pmem)
377.It acflag
378accounting flag (alias acflg)
379.It args
380command and arguments
381.It comm
382command
383.It command
384command and arguments
385.It cpu
386short-term cpu usage factor (for scheduling)
387.It etime
388elapsed running time
389.It flags
390the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)
391.It inblk
392total blocks read (alias inblock)
393.It jobc
394job control count
395.It ktrace
396tracing flags
397.It label
398MAC label
399.It lim
400memoryuse limit
401.It logname
402login name of user who started the process
403.It lstart
404time started
405.It majflt
406total page faults
407.It minflt
408total page reclaims
409.It msgrcv
410total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)
411.It msgsnd
412total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)
413.It lockname
414lock currently blocked on (as a symbolic name)
415.It mwchan
416wait channel or lock currently blocked on
417.It nice
418nice value (alias ni)
419.It nivcsw
420total involuntary context switches
421.It nsigs
422total signals taken (alias nsignals)
423.It nswap
424total swaps in/out
425.It nvcsw
426total voluntary context switches
427.It nwchan
428wait channel (as an address)
429.It oublk
430total blocks written (alias oublock)
431.It paddr
432swap address
433.It pagein
434pageins (same as majflt)
435.It pgid
436process group number
437.It pid
438process
439.Tn ID
440.It poip
441pageouts in progress
442.It ppid
443parent process
444.Tn ID
445.It pri
446scheduling priority
447.It re
448core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
449.It rgid
450real group
451.Tn ID
452.It rgroup
453group name (from rgid)
454.It rlink
455reverse link on run queue, or 0
456.It rss
457resident set size
458.It rtprio
459realtime priority (101 = not a realtime process)
460.It ruid
461real user
462.Tn ID
463.It ruser
464user name (from ruid)
465.It sid
466session
467.Tn ID
468.It sig
469pending signals (alias pending)
470.It sigcatch
471caught signals (alias caught)
472.It sigignore
473ignored signals (alias ignored)
474.It sigmask
475blocked signals (alias blocked)
476.It sl
477sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
478.It start
479time started
480.It state
481symbolic process state (alias stat)
482.It svgid
483saved gid from a setgid executable
484.It svuid
485saved uid from a setuid executable
486.It tdev
487control terminal device number
488.It time
489accumulated cpu time, user + system (alias cputime)
490.It tpgid
491control terminal process group
492.Tn ID
493.\".It trss
494.\"text resident set size (in Kbytes)
495.It tsid
496control terminal session
497.Tn ID
498.It tsiz
499text size (in Kbytes)
500.It tt
501control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
502.It tty
503full name of control terminal
504.It uprocp
505process pointer
506.It ucomm
507name to be used for accounting
508.It uid
509effective user
510.Tn ID
511.It upr
512scheduling priority on return from system call (alias usrpri)
513.It user
514user name (from uid)
515.It vsz
516virtual size in Kbytes (alias vsize)
517.It wchan
518wait channel (as a symbolic name)
519.It xstat
520exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)
521.El
522.Sh ENVIRONMENT
523The following environment variables affect the execution of
524.Nm :
525.Bl -tag -width ".Ev COLUMNS"
526.It Ev COLUMNS
527If set, specifies the user's preferred output width in column positions.
528By default,
529.Nm
530attempts to automatically determine the terminal width.
531.El
532.Sh FILES
533.Bl -tag -width /var/db/kvm_kernel.db -compact
534.It Pa /dev/kmem
535default kernel memory
536.It Pa /dev/lomac
537interface used to query the
538.Xr lomac 4
539KLD
540.It Pa /var/run/dev.db
541/dev name database
542.It Pa /var/db/kvm_kernel.db
543system namelist database
544.It Pa /boot/kernel/kernel
545default system namelist
546.It Pa /proc
547the mount point of
548.Xr procfs 5
549.El
550.Sh SEE ALSO
551.Xr kill 1 ,
552.Xr w 1 ,
553.Xr kvm 3 ,
554.Xr strftime 3 ,
555.Xr lomac 4 ,
556.Xr procfs 5 ,
557.Xr pstat 8 ,
558.Xr sysctl 8 ,
559.Xr mutex 9
560.Sh HISTORY
561The
562.Nm
563command appeared in
564.At v4 .
565.Sh BUGS
566Since
567.Nm
568cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled
569process, the information it displays can never be exact.
570