The
utility
displays a header line, followed by lines containing information about
all of your
processes that have controlling terminals.
A different set of processes can be selected for display by using any
combination of the
-a , G , p , T , t
and
-U
options.
If more than one of these options are given, then
will select all processes which are matched by at least one of the
given options.
For the processes which have been selected for display,
will usually display one line per process.
The
-H
option may result in multiple output lines (one line per thread) for
some processes.
By default all of these output lines are sorted first by controlling
terminal, then by process ID.
The
-m , r , u
and
-v
options will change the sort order.
If more than one sorting option was given, then the selected processes
will be sorted by the last sorting option which was specified.
For the processes which have been selected for display, the information
to display 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 process file system (see
procfs(5))
should be mounted when
is executed, otherwise not all information will be available.
The options are as follows:
-a
Display information about other users' processes as well as your own.
This will skip any processes which do not have a controlling terminal,
unless the
-x
option is also specified.
This can be disabled by setting the
security.bsd.see_other_uids
sysctl to zero.
-c
Change the
``command''
column output to just contain the executable name,
rather than the full command line.
-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.
-f
Show commandline and environment information about swapped out processes.
This option is honored only if the UID of the user is 0.
-G
Display information about processes which are running with the specified
real group IDs.
-H
Show all of the
kernel visible
threads associated with each process.
Depending on the threading package that
is in use, this may show only the process, only the kernel scheduled entities,
or all of the process threads.
-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 , sid , jobc , state , tt , time
and
command
-L
List the set of keywords available for the
-O
and
-o
options.
-l
Display information associated with the following keywords:
uid , pid , ppid , cpu , pri , nice , vsz , rss , mwchan , statett , time
and
command
-M
Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core
instead of the currently running system.
-m
Sort by memory usage, instead of the combination of controlling
terminal and process ID.
-N
Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default,
which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
-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.
The last keyword in the list may be appended with an equals
(`='
)
sign and a string that spans the rest of the argument, and can contain
space and comma characters.
This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of
the standard header.
Multiple keywords may also be given in the form of more than one
-o
option.
So the header texts for multiple keywords can be changed.
If all keywords have empty header texts, no header line is written.
-p
Display information about processes which match the specified process IDs.
-r
Sort by current CPU usage, instead of the combination of controlling
terminal and 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
devices.
-U
Display the processes belonging to the specified usernames.
-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
Use 132 columns to display information, instead of the default which
is your window size.
If the
-w
option is specified more than once,
will use as many columns as necessary without regard for your window size.
-X
When displaying processes matched by other options, skip any processes
which do not have a controlling terminal.
-x
When displaying processes matched by other options, include processes
which do not have a controlling terminal.
This is the opposite of the
-X
option.
If both
-X
and
-x
are specified in the same command, then
will use the one which was specified last.
-Z
Add
mac(4)
label to the list of keywords for which
will display information.
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 associated with the process as in
the include file
In sys/proc.h :
P_ADVLOCK Ta 0x00001Process may hold a POSIX advisory lock
P_CONTROLT Ta 0x00002Has a controlling terminal
P_KTHREAD Ta 0x00004Kernel thread
P_NOLOAD Ta 0x00008Ignore during load avg calculations
P_PPWAIT Ta 0x00010Parent is waiting for child to exec/exit
P_PROFIL Ta 0x00020Has started profiling
P_STOPPROF Ta 0x00040Has thread in requesting to stop prof
P_SUGID Ta 0x00100Had set id privileges since last exec
P_SYSTEM Ta 0x00200System proc: no sigs, stats or swapping
P_SINGLE_EXIT Ta 0x00400Threads suspending should exit, not wait
P_TRACED Ta 0x00800Debugged process being traced
P_WAITED Ta 0x01000Someone is waiting for us
P_WEXIT Ta 0x02000Working on exiting
P_EXEC Ta 0x04000Process called exec
P_SA Ta 0x08000Using scheduler activations
P_CONTINUED Ta 0x10000Proc has continued from a stopped state
P_STOPPED_SIG Ta 0x20000Stopped due to SIGSTOP/SIGTSTP
P_STOPPED_TRACE Ta 0x40000Stopped because of tracing
P_STOPPED_SINGLE Ta 0x80000Only one thread can continue
P_PROTECTED Ta 0x100000Do not kill on memory overcommit
P_SIGEVENT Ta 0x200000Process pending signals changed
P_JAILED Ta 0x1000000Process is in jail
P_INEXEC Ta 0x4000000Process is in execve()
label
The MAC label of the process.
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).
lockname
The name of the lock that the process is currently blocked on.
If the name is invalid or unknown, then
``???''
is displayed.
logname
The login name associated with the session the process is in (see
getlogin(2)).
mwchan
The event name if the process is blocked normally, or the lock name if
the process is blocked on a lock.
See the wchan and lockname keywords
for details.
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 characters, for example,
``RWNA
''
The first character 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).
L
Marks a process that is waiting to acquire a lock.
R
Marks a runnable process.
S
Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
T
Marks a stopped process.
W
Marks an idle interrupt thread.
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.
E
The process is trying to exit.
J
Marks a process which is in
jail(2).
The hostname of the prison can be found in
/proc/ Ao pid Ac /status
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)).
An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any.
The abbreviation consists of the three letters following
/dev/tty
or, for the console,
``con
''
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>
''
If the arguments cannot be located (usually because it has not been set, as is
the case of system processes and/or kernel threads) the command name is printed
within square brackets.
The
utility first tries to obtain the arguments cached by the kernel (if they were
shorter than the value of the
kern.ps_arg_cache_limit
sysctl).
The process can change the arguments shown with
setproctitle(3).
Otherwise,
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.
The ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.
If the arguments are unavailable or do not agree with the ucomm keyword,
the value for the ucomm keyword is appended to the arguments in parentheses.
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
args
command and arguments
comm
command
command
command and arguments
cpu
short-term CPU usage factor (for scheduling)
etime
elapsed running time
flags
the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias
f
inblk
total blocks read (alias
inblock
jid
jail ID
jobc
job control count
ktrace
tracing flags
label
MAC label
lim
memoryuse limit
lockname
lock currently blocked on (as a symbolic name)
logname
login name of user who started the session
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)
mwchan
wait channel or lock currently blocked on
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
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
rgroup
group name (from rgid)
rlink
reverse link on run queue, or 0
rss
resident set size
rtprio
realtime priority (101 = not a realtime process)
ruid
real user ID
ruser
user name (from ruid)
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
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
tsid
control terminal session ID
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)
ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables affect the execution of
:
COLUMNS
If set, specifies the user's preferred output width in column positions.
By default,
attempts to automatically determine the terminal width.
For historical reasons, the
utility under
Fx supports a different set of options from what is described by
St -p1003.2 ,
and what is supported on
non- BSD operating systems.
HISTORY
The
command appeared in
AT&T System
v4 .
BUGS
Since
cannot run faster than the system and is run as any other scheduled
process, the information it displays can never be exact.
The
utility does not correctly display argument lists containing multibyte
characters.
