PS man page on 4.4BSD

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

NAME
     ps — process status

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

DESCRIPTION
     Ps displays a header line followed by lines containing information about
     your processes that have controlling terminals.  This information is
     sorted 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	     Change the way the cpu percentage is calculated by using a
	     ``raw'' cpu calculation that ignores ``resident'' time (this nor‐
	     mally 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.

     -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 “/vmunix”.

     -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 asso‐
	     ciated 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/swap”.

     -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	     Display information about processes without controlling termi‐
	     nals.

     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⟩:

	     SLOAD	   0x0000001	 in core
	     SSYS	   0x0000002	 swapper or pager process
	     SLOCK	   0x0000004	 process being swapped out
	     SSWAP	   0x0000008	 save area flag
	     STRC	   0x0000010	 process is being traced
	     SWTED	   0x0000020	 another tracing flag
	     SSINTR	   0x0000040	 sleep is interruptible
	     SKEEP	   0x0000100	 another flag to prevent swap out
	     SOMASK	   0x0000200	 restore old mask after taking signal
	     SWEXIT	   0x0000400	 working on exiting
	     SPHYSIO	   0x0000800	 doing physical I/O
	     SVFORK	   0x0001000	 process resulted from vfork(2)
	     SVFDONE	   0x0002000	 another vfork flag
	     SNOVM	   0x0004000	 no vm, parent in a vfork
	     SPAGV	   0x0008000	 init data space on demand, from vnode
	     SSEQL	   0x0010000	 user warned of sequential vm behavior
	     SUANOM	   0x0020000	 user warned of random vm behavior
	     STIMO	   0x0040000	 timing out during sleep
	     SNOCLDSTOP	   0x0080000	 no SIGCHLD when children stop
	     SCTTY	   0x0100000	 has a controlling terminal
	     SOWEUPC	   0x0200000	 owe process an addupc() call at next
					 ast
	     SSEL	   0x0400000	 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger
	     SEXEC	   0x0800000	 process called exec(2)
	     SHPUX	   0x1000000	 HP-UX process (HPUXCOMPAT)
	     SULOCK	   0x2000000	 locked in core after swap error
	     SPTECHG	   0x4000000	 pte's for process have changed

     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:ps.1p''
	     format described in strftime(3).  If the command started less
	     than 7 days ago, the start time is displayed using the
	     ``%a6.15p'' 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).
	     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 require‐
		     ments 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 vadvise(2), for example, lisp(1) 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 vadvise(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.
	     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 termi‐
	     nal (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 infor‐
     mation, so the names cannot be depended on too much.  The ucomm (account‐
     ing) 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
     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
     uprocp	process pointer
     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/run/kvm_vmunix.db  system namelist database
     /vmunix		     default system namelist

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

4th Berkeley Distribution	April 18, 1994	     4th Berkeley Distribution
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