PS(1)							    BSD General Commands Manual 						     PS(1)

NAME

     ps -- process status

SYNOPSIS

     ps [-AaCcehjlmrSsTuvwx] [-k key] [-M core] [-N system] [-O fmt] [-o fmt] [-p pid] [-t tty] [-U username] [-W swap]
     ps -L

DESCRIPTION

     ps displays a header line followed by lines containing information about running processes.  By default, the display includes only processes
     that have controlling terminals and are owned by your uid.  The default sort order of controlling terminal and (among processes with the same
     controlling terminal) process ID may be changed using the -k, -m, or -r options.

     The information displayed for each process is selected based on a set of keywords (see the -L, -O, and -o options).  The default output for-
     mat 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 all processes.  This is equivalent to -a -x.

     -a      Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.  Note that this does not display information about processes
	     without controlling terminals.

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

     -c      Do not display full command with arguments, but only the executable name.	This may be somewhat confusing; for example, all sh(1)
	     scripts will show as ``sh''.

     -e      Display the environment as well.  The environment for other users' processes can only be displayed by the super-user.

     -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.

     -k      Sort the output using the space or comma separated list of keywords.  Multiple sort keys may be specified, using any of the -k, -m,
	     or -r options.  The default sort order is equivalent to -k tdev,pid.

     -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 from the specified core file instead of the running system.

     -m      Sort by memory usage, equivalent to -k vsz.

     -N      Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default ``/netbsd''.  Ignored unless -M is specified.

     -O      Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified.  The -O option does not suppress the
	     default display; it inserts additional keywords just after the pid keyword in the default display, or after the pid keyword (if any)
	     in a non-default display specified before the first use of the -O flag.  Keywords inserted by multiple -O options will be adjacent.

	     An equals sign (``='') followed by a customised header string may be appended to a keyword, as described in more detail under the -o
	     option.

     -o      Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified.  Use of the -o option suppresses the set
	     of keywords that would be displayed by default, or appends to the set of keywords specified by other options.

	     An equals sign (``='') followed by a customised header string may be appended to a keyword.  This causes the printed header to use
	     the specified string instead of the default header associated with the keyword.

	     Everything after the first equals sign is part of the customised header text, and this may include embedded spaces (`` ''), commas
	     (``,''), or equals signs (``='').	To specify multiple keywords with customised headers, use multiple -o or -O options.

	     If all the keywords to be displayed have customised headers, and all the customised headers are entirely empty, then the header line
	     is not printed at all.

     -p      Display information associated with the specified process ID.

     -r      Sort by current CPU usage.  This is equivalent to -k %cpu.

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

     -s      Display one line for each LWP, rather than one line for each process, and display information associated with the following keywords:
	     uid, pid, ppid, cpu, lid, nlwp, pri, nice, vsz, rss, wchan, lstate, tt, time, and command.

     -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.  Use a question mark (``?'') for processes not
	     attached to a terminal device and a minus sign (``-'') for processes that have been revoked from their terminal device.

     -U      Displays processes belonging to the user whose username or uid has been given to the -U switch.

     -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, %cpu, %mem, and
	     command.  The -v option implies the -m option.

     -W      Extract swap information from the specified file instead of the default ``/dev/drum''.  Ignored unless -M is specified.

     -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 to your window size.

     -x      Also display information about processes without controlling terminals.

     A complete list of the available keywords are listed below.  Some of these keywords are further specified 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 <sys/proc.h>:

	     P_ADVLOCK	    0x00000001	   process may hold a POSIX advisory lock
	     P_CONTROLT     0x00000002	   process has a controlling terminal
	     P_NOCLDSTOP    0x00000008	   no SIGCHLD when children stop
	     P_PPWAIT	    0x00000010	   parent is waiting for child to exec/exit
	     P_PROFIL	    0x00000020	   process has started profiling
	     P_SELECT	    0x00000040	   selecting; wakeup/waiting danger
	     P_SINTR	    0x00000080	   sleep is interruptible
	     P_SUGID	    0x00000100	   process had set id privileges since last exec
	     P_SYSTEM	    0x00000200	   system process: no sigs or stats
	     P_TIMEOUT	    0x00000400	   timing out during sleep
	     P_TRACED	    0x00000800	   process is being traced
	     P_WAITED	    0x00001000	   debugging process has waited for child
	     P_WEXIT	    0x00002000	   working on exiting
	     P_EXEC	    0x00004000	   process called execve(2)
	     P_OWEUPC	    0x00008000	   owe process an addupc() call at next ast
	     P_FSTRACE	    0x00010000	   tracing via file system
	     P_NOCLDWAIT    0x00020000	   no zombies when children die
	     P_32	    0x00040000	   32-bit process (used on 64-bit kernels)
	     P_BIGLOCK	    0x00080000	   process needs kernel ``big lock'' to run
	     P_INEXEC	    0x00100000	   process is exec'ing and cannot be traced

     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:%M%p'' for-
	     mat described in strftime(3).  If the command started less than 7 days ago, the start time is displayed using the ``%a%p'' 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, uninterruptible) wait.
	     I	     Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
	     O	     Marks a process running on a processor.
	     R	     Marks a runnable process, or one that is in the process of creation.
	     S	     Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
	     T	     Marks a stopped process.
	     U	     Marks a suspended 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 LWP is detached (can't be waited for).
	     <	     The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
	     a	     The process is using scheduler activations.
	     E	     The process is trying to exit.
	     K	     The process is a kernel thread or system process.
	     l	     The process has multiple LWPs.
	     N	     The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see setpriority(2)).
	     s	     The process is a session leader.
	     V	     The process is suspended during a vfork(2).
	     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 will try to locate the processes' argument vector from the user area in order to print the command name and arguments.	This method is not
     reliable because a process is allowed to destroy this information.  The ucomm (accounting) keyword will always contain the real command name
     as contained in the process structure's p_comm field.

     If the command vector cannot be located (usually because it has not been set, as is the case of system processes and/or kernel threads) the
     command name is printed within square brackets.

     To indicate that the argument vector has been tampered with, ps will append the real command name to the output within parentheses if the
     basename of the first argument in the argument vector does not match the contents of the real command name.

     In addition, ps checks for the following two situations and does not append the real command name parenthesized:

     -shellname
	     The login process traditionally adds a '-' in front of the shell name to indicate a login shell.  ps will not append parenthesized
	     the command name if it matches with the name in the first argument of the argument vector, skipping the leading '-'.

     daemonname: current-activity
	     Daemon processes frequently report their current activity by setting their name to be like ``daemonname: current-activity''.  ps will
	     not append parenthesized the command name, if the string preceding the ':' in the first argument of the argument vector matches the
	     command name.

KEYWORDS

     The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their meanings.  Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms).

     %cpu	 percentage CPU usage (alias pcpu)
     %mem	 percentage memory usage (alias pmem)
     acflag	 accounting flag (alias acflg)
     comm	 command (the argv[0] value)
     command	 command and arguments (alias args)
     cpu	 short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling)
     cpuid	 CPU number the current process or lwp is running on.
     ctime	 accumulated CPU time of all children that have exited
     egid	 effective group id
     egroup	 group name (from egid)
     emul	 emulation name
     etime	 elapsed time since the process was started, in the form [[dd-]hh:]mm:ss
     euid	 effective user id
     euser	 user name (from euid)
     flags	 the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)
     gid	 effective group id
     group	 group name (from gid)
     groupnames  group names (from group access list)
     groups	 group access list
     inblk	 total blocks read (alias inblock)
     jobc	 job control count
     ktrace	 tracing flags
     ktracep	 tracing vnode
     laddr	 kernel virtual address of the struct lwp belonging to the LWP.
     lid	 ID of the LWP
     lim	 memory use limit
     lname	 descriptive name of the LWP
     logname	 login name of user who started the process (alias login)
     lstart	 time started
     lstate	 symbolic LWP state
     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
     nlwp	 number of LWPs in the process
     nsigs	 total signals taken (alias nsignals)
     nvcsw	 total voluntary context switches
     nwchan	 wait channel (as an address)
     oublk	 total blocks written (alias oublock)
     p_ru	 resource usage pointer (valid only for zombie)
     paddr	 kernel virtual address of the struct proc belonging to the process.
     pagein	 pageins (same as majflt)
     pgid	 process group number
     pid	 process ID
     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
     rlwp	 Number of LWPs on a processor or run queue
     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
     sid	 session ID
     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)
     stime	 accumulated system CPU time
     svgid	 saved gid from a setgid executable
     svgroup	 group name (from svgid)
     svuid	 saved uid from a setuid executable
     svuser	 user name (from svuid)
     tdev	 control terminal device number
     time	 accumulated CPU time, user + system (alias cputime)
     tpgid	 control terminal process group ID
     tsess	 control terminal session pointer
     tsiz	 text size (in Kbytes)
     tt 	 control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
     tty	 full name of control terminal
     uaddr	 kernel virtual address of the struct user belonging to the LWP.
     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)
     utime	 accumulated user CPU time
     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
     /var/run/dev.cdb
		      /dev name database
     /var/db/kvm.db   system namelist database
     /netbsd	      default system namelist

SEE ALSO

     kill(1), pgrep(1), pkill(1), sh(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3), dev_mkdb(8), pstat(8)

BUGS

     Since ps cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled process, the information it displays can never be exact.

BSD
								 October 22, 2009							       BSD