PS(1)								Linux User's Manual							     PS(1)

NAME

       ps - report process status

SYNOPSIS

       ps [lujsvmaxScewhrnu] [txx] [O[+|-]k1[[+|-]k2...]] [pids]

       there are also three long options:

       --sortX[+|-]key[,[+|-]key[,...]]

       --help

       --version

       More long options are on the way...

DESCRIPTION

       ps gives a snapshot of the current processes.  If you want a repetitive update of this status, use top.	This man page documents the /proc-
       based version of ps, or tries to.

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
       The command-line options for this version of ps are derived from the BSD version of ps, not the System V version.

       The command-line arguments should not be preceeded by a `-' character, because in the future, a `-' will be used to  indicate  Unix98-stan-
       dard command-line arguments, while no `-' will indicate the current ``extended BSD'' style of command line arguments.

       For  now, ps will give you a warning if you use a `-' for a short option, but it will still work.  If you have shell scripts which use BSD-
       style arguments to ps, take heed of the warning and fix them, or else your scripts will fail to function correctly at  some  point  in  the
       future.	If you want to turn off the warnings, set the I_WANT_A_BROKEN_PS environment variable.

       There are also some ``long options'' in GNU style; see below for those.

       l    long format
       u    user format: gives user name and start time
       j    jobs format: pgid sid
       s    signal format
       v    vm format
       m    displays memory info (combine with p flag to get number of pages).
       f    "forest" family tree format for command line
       a    show processes of other users too
       x    show processes without controlling terminal
       S    add child cpu time and page faults
       c    command name from task_struct
       e    show environment after command line and ` + '
       w    wide  output:  don't truncate command lines to fit on one line.  To be exact, every w that is specified will add another possible line
	    to the output. If the space isn't needed it isn't used. You may up to 100 w's.
       h    no header
       r    running procs only
       n    numeric output for USER and WCHAN.

       txx  only procs with controlling tty xx; for xx you may use either the name of a device file under "/dev" or that name with either  tty	or
	    cu sliced off.  This is the reverse heuristic that ps uses to print out the abbreviated tty name in the TT field, e.g.  ps t1.

       O[+|-]k1[,[+|-]k2[,...]]
	    Order  the	process  listing  according  to  the  multi-level sort specified by the sequence of short keys from SORT KEYS, k1, k2, ...
	    Default order specifications exist for each of the various formats of ps.  These are over-ridden by a user	specified  ordering.   The
	    `+'  is  quite  optional, merely re-iterating the default direction on a key.  `-' reverses direction only on the key it precedes.	As
	    with t and pids, the O option must be the last option in a single command argument, but specifications  in	successive  arguments  are
	    catenated.

       pids List  only	the  specified	processes; they are comma-delimited.  The list must be given immediately after the last option in a single
	    command-line argument, with no intervening space, e.g.  ps j1,4,5.	Lists specified in subsequent arguments are catenated, e.g.  ps  l
	    1,2  3,4 5 6 will list all of the processes 1-6 in long format.  If pids are given, they are listed no matter what.  If a tty is given
	    matching processes are listed no matter what.  These two features override the 'a' and 'x' flags.

LONG COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
       These options are preceeded by a double-hyphen.

       --sortX[+|-]key[,[+|-]key[,...]]
	    Choose a multi-letter key from the SORT KEYS section. X may be any convenient separator character.	To be GNU-ish use `='.	The `+' is
	    really optional since default direction is increasing numerical or lexicographic order.  E.g.: ps jax --sort=uid,-ppid,+pid

       --help
	    Get  a help message that summarizes the usage and gives a list of supported sort keys.  This list may be more up to date than this man
	    page.

       --version
	    Display version and source of this program.

SORT KEYS

       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.
       If someone wants to volunteer to write special comparison functions for the cooked values, ... ;-)

       SHORT   LONG	       DESCRIPTION
       c       cmd	       simple name of executable
       C       cmdline	       full command line
       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
       K       stime	       system 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 minor device number of tty
       T       start_time      time process was started
       U       uid	       user ID number
       u       user	       user name
       v       vsize	       total VM size in bytes
       y       priority        kernel scheduling priority

FIELD DESCRIPTIONS

       PRI  This is the counter field in the task struct.  It is the time in HZ of the process's possible timeslice.

       NI   Standard unix nice value; a positive value means less cpu time.

       SIZE Virtual image size; size of text+data+stack.

       RSS  Resident set size; kilobytes of program in memory.

       WCHAN
	    Name  of  the kernel function where the process is sleeping, with the `sys_' stripped from the function name.  If /etc/psdatabase does
	    not exist, it is just a hex number instead.

       STAT Information about the status of the process.  The first field is R for runnable, S for sleeping, D for uninterruptible  sleep,  T  for
	    stopped or traced, or Z for a zombie process.  The second field contains W if the process has no resident pages.  The third field is N
	    if the process has a positive nice value (NI field).

       TT   Controlling tty.

       PAGEIN
	    Number of major page faults (page faults that cause pages to be read from disk, including pages read from the buffer cache).

       TRS  Text resident size.

       SWAP Kilobytes (or pages if p is used) on swap device.

       SHARE
	    Shared memory.

UPDATING

       This proc-based ps works by reading the files in the proc filesystem, mounted on /proc.	This ps does not need to be suid kmem or have  any
       privileges to run.  Do not give this ps any special permissions.

       You will need to put in place the appropriate System.map file when you install a new kernel in order to get meaningful information from the
       WCHAN field.  This should be done every time you compile a new kernel.  You should also run 'ps' as root once and then  any  time  the  tty
       devices in the "/dev" directory change.

       As of procps-1.00, ps/top read System.map directly if it is available.  The search path for kernel address-to-symbol resolution is:
		   $PS_SYSTEM_MAP
		   /boot/System.map-`uname -r`
		   /boot/System.map
		   /lib/modules/`uname -r`/System.map
		   /etc/psdatabase
		   /boot/psdatabase-`uname -r`
		   /boot/psdatabase,
		   /lib/modules/`uname -r`/psdatabase

NOTES

       The  member  used_math of task_struct is not shown, since crt0.s checks to see if math is present.  This causes the math flag to be set for
       all processes, and so it is worthless.

       Programs swapped out to disk will be shown without command line arguments, and unless the c option is given, in parentheses.

       %CPU shows the cputime/realtime percentage.  It will not add up to 100% unless you are lucky.  It is time used  divided	by  the  time  the
       process has been running.

       The  SIZE and RSS fields don't count the page tables and the task_struct of a proc; this is at least 12k of memory that is always resident.
       SIZE is the virtual size of the proc (code+data+stack).

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 approxi-
       mate  binary  search directly on System.map, and many code and documentation cleanups.  David Mossberger-Tang wrote the generic BFD support
       for psupdate.  Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm@redhat.com> is the current maintainer.

       Please send bug reports to <procps-list@redhat.com>

Cohesive Systems						    3 Sep 1997								     PS(1)