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

NAME
     ps — process status

SYNOPSIS
     ps [-aCcdefHhjlmrSTuvwXxZ] [-O fmt | -o fmt] [-G gid[,gid...]] [-M core]
	[-N system] [-p pid[,pid...]] [-t tty[,tty...]] [-U user[,user...]]
     ps [-L]

DESCRIPTION
     The ps 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 ps will select all processes which are
     matched by at least one of the given options.

     For the processes which have been selected for display, ps will usually
     display one line per process.  The -H option may result in multiple out‐
     put 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 sys‐
     tem time), state, and associated command.

     The process file system (see procfs(5)) should be mounted when ps is exe‐
     cuted, 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 control‐
	     ling 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).

     -d	     Arrange processes into descendancy order and prefix each command
	     with indentation text showing sibling and parent/child relation‐
	     ships.  If either of the -m and -r options are also used, they
	     control how sibling processes are sorted relative to eachother.

     -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, state, tt, 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 control‐
	     ling 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 asso‐
	     ciated 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, ps will use as many columns as necessary without
	     regard for your window size.

     -X	     When displaying processes matched by other options, skip any pro‐
	     cesses which do not have a controlling terminal.

     -x	     When displaying processes matched by other options, include pro‐
	     cesses 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 ps will use the one which was specified
	     last.

     -Z	     Add mac(4) label to the list of keywords for which ps will dis‐
	     play 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
	       <sys/proc.h>:

	       P_ADVLOCK	    0x00001	  Process may hold a POSIX
						  advisory lock
	       P_CONTROLT	    0x00002	  Has a controlling terminal
	       P_KTHREAD	    0x00004	  Kernel thread
	       P_PPWAIT		    0x00010	  Parent is waiting for child
						  to exec/exit
	       P_PROFIL		    0x00020	  Has started profiling
	       P_STOPPROF	    0x00040	  Has thread in requesting to
						  stop prof
	       P_HASTHREADS	    0x00080	  Has had threads (no cleanup
						  shortcuts)
	       P_SUGID		    0x00100	  Had set id privileges since
						  last exec
	       P_SYSTEM		    0x00200	  System proc: no sigs, stats
						  or swapping
	       P_SINGLE_EXIT	    0x00400	  Threads suspending should
						  exit, not wait
	       P_TRACED		    0x00800	  Debugged process being
						  traced
	       P_WAITED		    0x01000	  Someone is waiting for us
	       P_WEXIT		    0x02000	  Working on exiting
	       P_EXEC		    0x04000	  Process called exec
	       P_WKILLED	    0x08000	  Killed, shall go to
						  kernel/user boundary ASAP
	       P_CONTINUED	    0x10000	  Proc has continued from a
						  stopped state
	       P_STOPPED_SIG	    0x20000	  Stopped due to
						  SIGSTOP/SIGTSTP
	       P_STOPPED_TRACE	    0x40000	  Stopped because of tracing
	       P_STOPPED_SINGLE	    0x80000	  Only one thread can continue
	       P_PROTECTED	    0x100000	  Do not kill on memory
						  overcommit
	       P_SIGEVENT	    0x200000	  Process pending signals
						  changed
	       P_SINGLE_BOUNDARY    0x400000	  Threads should suspend at
						  user boundary
	       P_HWPMC		    0x800000	  Process is using HWPMCs
	       P_JAILED		    0x1000000	  Process is in jail
	       P_INEXEC		    0x4000000	  Process is in execve()
	       P_STATCHILD	    0x8000000	  Child process stopped or
						  exited
	       P_INMEM		    0x10000000	  Loaded into memory
	       P_SWAPPINGOUT	    0x20000000	  Process is being swapped out
	       P_SWAPPINGIN	    0x40000000	  Process is being swapped in

     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, uninter‐
		       ruptible) 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/⟨pid⟩/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)).
	       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 three letters follow‐
	       ing /dev/tty, or, for the console, “con”.  This is followed by
	       a ‘-’ if the process can no longer reach that controlling ter‐
	       minal (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 ps 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, ps makes an educated guess as to
     the file name and arguments given when the process was created by examin‐
     ing memory or the swap area.  The method is inherently somewhat unreli‐
     able 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
     tdaddr	thread address
     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)

     Note that the pending column displays bitmask of signals pending in the
     process queue when -H option is not specified, otherwise the per-thread
     queue of pending signals is shown.

ENVIRONMENT
     The following environment variables affect the execution of ps:

     COLUMNS  If set, specifies the user's preferred output width in column
	      positions.  By default, ps attempts to automatically determine
	      the terminal width.

FILES
     /boot/kernel/kernel  default system namelist
     /proc		  the mount point of procfs(5)

SEE ALSO
     kill(1), pgrep(1), pkill(1), procstat(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3),
     mac(4), procfs(5), pstat(8), sysctl(8), mutex(9)

STANDARDS
     For historical reasons, the ps utility under FreeBSD supports a different
     set of options from what is described by IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”), and
     what is supported on non-BSD operating systems.

HISTORY
     The ps command appeared in Version 4 AT&T UNIX.

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.

     The ps utility does not correctly display argument lists containing
     multibyte characters.

BSD				 July 24, 2010				   BSD
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