man/man1b/ps.1b

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 Copyright (c) 2002, Sun Microsystems, Inc. - All Rights Reserved.
 Copyright (c), 1980 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
 PS 1B "Feb 17, 2023"
 NAME
ps - display the status of current processes
 SYNOPSIS
/usr/ucb/ps [-aceglnrSuUvwx] [-t term] [num]


 DESCRIPTION
The ps command displays information about processes. Normally, only those
processes that are running with your effective user ID and are attached
to a controlling terminal (see termio(4I)) are shown. Additional
categories of processes can be added to the display using various options. In
particular, the -a option allows you to include processes that are not
owned by you (that do not have your user ID), and the -x option
allows you to include processes without controlling terminals. When you specify
both -a and -x, you get processes owned by anyone, with or without
a controlling terminal. The -r option restricts the list of processes
printed to running and runnable processes.

ps displays in tabular form the process ID, under PID; the
controlling terminal (if any), under TT; the cpu time used by the process
so far, including both user and system time, under TIME; the state of the
process, under S; and finally, an indication of the COMMAND that is
running.

The state is given by a single letter from the following:
O

Process is running on a processor.


S

Sleeping. Process is waiting for an event to complete.


R

Runnable. Process is on run queue.


Z

Zombie state. Process terminated and parent not waiting.


T

Traced. Process stopped by a signal because parent is tracing it.


 OPTIONS
The following options must all be combined to form the first argument:
-a

Includes information about processes owned by others.


-c

Displays the command name rather than the command arguments.


-e

Displays the environment as well as the arguments to the command.


-g

Displays all processes. Without this option, ps only prints interesting
processes. Processes are deemed to be uninteresting if they are process group
leaders. This normally eliminates top-level command interpreters and processes
waiting for users to login on free terminals.


-l

Displays a long listing, with fields F, PPID, CP, PRI,
NI, SZ, RSS, and WCHAN as described below.


-n

Produces numerical output for some fields. In a user listing, the USER
field is replaced by a UID field.


-r

Restricts output to running and runnable processes.


-S

Displays accumulated CPU time used by this process and all of its reaped
children.


-t term

Lists only process data associated with the terminal, term. Terminal
identifiers may be specified in one of two forms: the device's file name (for
example, tty04 or term/14) or, if the device's file name starts
with tty, just the digit identifier (for example, 04).


-u

Displays user-oriented output. This includes fields USER, %CPU,
%MEM, SZ, RSS, and START as described below.


-U

Obsolete. This option no longer has any effect. It causes ps to exit
without printing the process listing.


-v

Displays a version of the output containing virtual memory. This includes
fields SIZE, %CPU, %MEM, and RSS, described below.


-w

Uses a wide output format, that is, 132 columns rather than 80. If the option
letter is repeated, that is, -ww, this option uses arbitrarily wide
output. This information is used to decide how much of long commands to print.
Note: The wide output option can be viewed only by a superuser or the
user who owns the process.


-x

Includes processes with no controlling terminal.


num

A process number may be given, in which case the output is restricted to that
process. This option must be supplied last.


 DISPLAY FORMATS
Fields that are not common to all output formats:
USER

Name of the owner of the process.


%CPU

CPU use of the process. This is a decaying average over up to a minute of
previous (real) time.


NI

Process scheduling increment (see getpriority(3C) and nice(2)).


SIZE

The total size of the process in virtual memory, including all mapped files and
devices, in kilobyte units.


SZ

Same as SIZE.


RSS

Real memory (resident set) size of the process, in kilobyte units.


UID

Numerical user-ID of process owner.


PPID

Numerical ID of parent of process.


CP

Short-term CPU utilization factor (used in scheduling).


PRI

The priority of the process (higher numbers mean lower priority).


START

The starting time of the process, given in hours, minutes, and seconds. A
process begun more than 24 hours before the ps inquiry is executed is
given in months and days.


WCHAN

The address of an event for which the process is sleeping (if blank, the
process is running).


%MEM

The ratio of the process's resident set size to the physical memory on the
machine, expressed as a percentage.


F

Flags (hexadecimal and additive) associated with the process. These flags are
available for historical purposes; no meaning should be currently ascribed to
them.


A process that has exited and has a parent, but has not yet been waited for by
the parent, is marked <defunct>\|; otherwise, ps tries to determine
the command name and arguments given when the process was created by examining
the user block.
 FILES
/dev/tty*
/etc/passwd

UID information supplier


 SEE ALSO
 kill (1),  ps (1),  nice (2),  getpriority (3C),  termio (4I),  proc (5),  attributes (7),  whodo (8)  NOTES
Things can change while ps is running. The picture ps gives is only
a close approximation to the current state. Some data printed for defunct
processes is irrelevant.