PS(1)

NAME
ps - process status

SYNOPSIS
[-acCehjKlmrSTuvwx] [-M core] [-N system] [-O fmt] [-o fmt] [-p pid] [-t tty] [-W swap]
[-L]

DESCRIPTION
ps displays a header line followed by lines containing information about your processes that have controlling terminals. This information is sorted by controlling terminal and (among processes with the same controlling terminal) by process ID.

The information displayed 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 command.

The options are as follows:

-a  Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.

-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”.

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

-e  Display the environment as well.

-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  Disable the fallback /proc-based method. Note that the /proc-based method is only used if the ordinary kvm method is not possible. See below for more details.

-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 associated with the name list from the specified core instead of the default “/dev/kmem”.

-m  Sort by memory usage, instead of by process ID.

-N  Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default “/netbsd”.

-O  Add the information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified, after the process ID, in the default information display. Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header.

-o  Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified. Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header.

-p  Display information associated with the specified process ID.

-r  Sort by current cpu usage, instead of by process ID.

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

-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.

-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”.

-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 for your window size.

-x  Also display information about processes without controlling terminals.

If ps is unable to extract process information directly from the kernel (e.g., due to incorrect -M or -N options or kvm-based reasons), it currently uses an experimental fallback method to gather as much information as possible through the limited “/proc” interface, if the “/proc” filesystem is mounted. See mount_procfs(8) for more details. ps verifies that “/proc” is a procfs filesystem before proceeding. This experimental fallback method will change in future releases. The -K option disables this fallback /proc-based lookup.

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 | 0x0000001 | process may hold a POSIX advisory lock
    P_CONTROLT | 0x0000002 | process has a controlling terminal
    P_INMEM | 0x0000004 | process is loaded into memory
    P_NOCLDSTOP | 0x0000008 | no
    SIGCHLD when children stop
    P_PPWAIT | 0x0000010 | parent is waiting for child to exec/exit
    P_PROFIL | 0x0000020 | process has started profiling
    P_SELECT | 0x0000040 | selecting; wakeup/waiting danger
    P_SINTR | 0x0000080 | sleep is interruptible
    P_SUGID | 0x0000100 | process had set id privileges since last exec
    P_SYSTEM | 0x0000200 | system process: no sigs, stats or swapping
    P_TIMEOUT | 0x0000400 | timing out during sleep
    P_TRACED | 0x0000800 | process is being traced
    P_WAITED | 0x0001000 | debugging process has waited for child
    P_WEXIT | 0x0002000 | working on exiting
    P_EXEC | 0x0004000 | process called
    execve(2)
    P_OWEUPC | 0x0008000 | owe process an addupc() call at next ast
    P_FSTRACE | 0x0010000 | tracing via file system
    P_SSTEP | 0x0020000 | process needs single-step fixup

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, uninterruptible) wait.
    I   Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
    R   Marks a runnable process.
    S   Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
    T   Marks a stopped 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 process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
    >   The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is currently exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not swapped.
    A   the process has asked for random page replacement (VA_ANOM, from madvise(2), for example, a LISP interpreter in a garbage collect).
    E   The process is trying to exit.
    L   The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw I/O).
    N   The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see setpriority(2)).
    S   The process has asked for FIFO page replacement (VA_SEQL, from madvise(2), for example, a large image processing program using virtual memory to sequentially address voluminous data).
    s   The process is a session leader.
    V   The process is suspended during a vfork(2).
    W   The process is swapped out.
    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 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 somewhat unreliable and in any event a process is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended on too much. The ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.

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)
command
    command and arguments
cpu short-term cpu usage factor (for scheduling)
flags
    the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)
inblk
    total blocks read (alias inblock)
jobc
    job control count
holdcnt
    number of holds on the process (if non-zero, process can't be swapped)
ktrace
    tracing flags
ktracep
    tracing vnode
lim memoryuse limit
logname
    login name of user who started the process
lstart
    time started
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
nsigs
    total signals taken (alias nsignals)
nswap
    total swaps in/out
nvcsw
    total voluntary context switches
nwchan
    wait channel (as an address)
oublk
    total blocks written (alias oublock)
p_ru
    resource usage (valid only for zombie)
paddr
    swap address
pagein
    pageins (same as majflt)
pgid
    process group number
pid process ID
poip
    pageouts in progress
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
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
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)
svgid
    saved gid from a setgid executable
svuid
    saved uid from a setuid executable
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
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)
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
/dev/kmem
    default kernel memory
/var/run/dev.db
    /dev name database
/var/db/kvm_netbsd.db
    system namelist database
/netbsd
    default system namelist
/proc
    filesystem for obtaining process information

SEE ALSO
kill(1), sh(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3), mount_procfs(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.