PS(1)							      General Commands Manual							     PS(1)

NAME

       ps - process status

SYNOPSIS

       ps [ acgklnrtuwxU# [ core [ swap [ system ] ] ] ]

DESCRIPTION

       Ps  prints  certain indicia about active processes.  To get a complete printout on the console or lpr, use ``ps axlw'' For a quick snapshot
       of system activity, ``ps au'' is recommended.  A hyphen may precede options with no effect.  The following options may be specified.

       a      asks for information about all processes with terminals (ordinarily only one's own processes are displayed).

       c      causes only the comm field to be displayed instead of the arguments.  (The comm field is the tail of the path name of the  file  the
	      process  last  exec'ed.)	 This  option  speeds up ps somewhat and reduces the amount of output.	It is also more reliable since the
	      process can't scribble on top of it.

       g      asks for all processes.  Without this option, ps only prints ``interesting'' processes.  Processes are deemed to be uninteresting if
	      they are process group leaders, or if their arguments begin with a `-'.  This normally eliminates shells and getty processes.

       k      causes the file /usr/sys/core is used in place of /dev/kmem and /dev/mem.  This is used for postmortem system debugging.

       l      asks  for  a  long listing.  The short listing contains the user name, process ID, tty, the cumulative execution time of the process
	      and an approximation to the command line.

       n      asks for numeric rather than symbolic wchans.  This flag implies the ``l'' flag.

       r      asks for ``raw'' output.	A non-human readable sequence of structures is output on the standard output.  There is one structure  for
	      each process, the format is defined by <psout.h>

       tttyname
	      restricts  output to processes whose controlling tty is the specified ttyname (which should be specified as printed by ps, including
	      t?  for processes with no tty).  This option must be the last one given.

       u      A user oriented output is produced.  This includes the name of the owner of the process, process id, nice value, size, tty, cpu time
	      used, and the command.

       w      tells  ps you are on a wide terminal (132 columns).  Ps normally assumes you are on an 80 column terminal.  This information is used
	      to decide how much of long commands to print.  The w option may be repeated, e.g.  ww, and the entire command, up to 128 characters,
	      will be printed without regard to terminal width.

       x      asks even about processes with no terminal.

       U      causes ps to update a private database where is keeps system information.  Thus ``ps -U'' should be included in the /etc/rc file.

       #      A process number may be given, (indicated here by #), in which case the output is restricted to that process.  This option must also
	      be last.

       A second argument tells ps where to look for core if the k option is given, instead of /usr/sys/core.  A third argument is the  name  of  a
       swap  file  to  use  instead  of  the default /dev/swap.  If a fourth argument is given, it is taken to be the file containing the system's
       namelist.  Otherwise, ``/unix'' is used.

       The output is sorted by tty, then by process ID.

       The long listing is columnar and contains

       F      Flags associated with the process.  These are defined by #define lines in /usr/include/sys/proc.h.

       S      The state of the process.  0: nonexistent; S: sleeping; W: waiting; R: running; I: intermediate; Z: terminated; T: stopped.

       UID    The user id of the process owner.

       PID    The process ID of the process; as in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name.

       PPID   The process ID of the parent process.

       CPU    Processor utilization for scheduling.

       PRI    The priority of the process; high numbers mean low priority.

       NICE   Used in priority computation.

       ADDR   The memory address of the process if resident, otherwise the disk address.

       SZ     The size in blocks (512 bytes) of the memory image of the process.

       WCHAN  The event for which the process is waiting or sleeping; if blank, the process is running.

       TTY    The controlling tty for the process.

       TIME   The cumulative execution time for the process.

       COMMAND
	      The command and its arguments.

       A process that has exited and has a parent, but has not yet been waited for by the parent is marked <defunct>.  Ps makes an educated  guess
       as  to the file name and arguments given when the process was created by examining memory or the swap area.  The method is inherently some-
       what unreliable and in any event a process is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be counted on too much.

FILES

       /unix		   system namelist
       /dev/kmem	   kernel memory
       /dev/swap	   swap device
       /usr/sys/core	   core file
       /dev		   searched to find swap device and tty names
       /var/run/psdatabase system namelist and device information

SEE ALSO

       kill(1), w(1), pstat(8)

BUGS

       Things can change while ps is running; the picture it gives is only a close approximation to reality.

       Some processes, typically those in the background, are printed with null or garbaged arguments, even though the process	has  not  swapped.
       (Sometimes ps even loses on its own arguments!)	In these cases, the name of the command is printed in parentheses.

       When automatic crash dumps are enabled, /usr/sys/core is not a sensible default core file name.

3rd Berkeley Distribution														     PS(1)