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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 control‐
     ling 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 format
     includes, for each process, the process' ID, controlling terminal, CPU
     time (including both user and system time), state, and associated com‐
     mand.

     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 exe‐
	     cutable 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 key‐
	     words.  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 run‐
	     ning 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 asso‐
	     ciated 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 pro‐
	     cesses 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 ter‐
	     minals.

     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”
	     format 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, uninter‐
		     ruptible) 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 com‐
     mand 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 argu‐
	     ment of the argument vector, skipping the leading ‘-’.

     daemonname: current-activity
	     Daemon processes frequently report their current activity by set‐
	     ting 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 sched‐
     uled process, the information it displays can never be exact.

BSD			       October 22, 2009				   BSD
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