PS(1) COMMAND REFERENCE PS(1) NAME ps - process status SYNOPSIS ps [ -a ] [ -c ] [ -e ] [ -f swapfile ] [ -g ] [ -k corefile ] [ -l ] [ -n namelist ] [ -p proclist ] [ -s ] [ -t termlist ] [ -u ] [ -v ] [ -w ] [ -x ] DESCRIPTION Ps prints information about processes. Normally, only the current user's processes are included in the output (see the -a option described below). All output formats include, for each process, the process id PID, the control terminal of the process TT, the cpu time used by the process TIME (this includes both user and system time), the state of the process STAT, and an indication of the COMMAND which is running. The state is given by a sequence of four letters, e.g. RWNA. The first letter indicates the runnability of the process: R for runnable processes, T for stopped processes, P for processes in page wait, D for those in disk (or other short term) waits, S for those sleeping for less than about 20 seconds, and I for idle (sleeping longer than about 20 seconds) processes. The second letter indicates whether a process is swapped out, showing W if it is, or a blank if it is loaded (in-core); a process which has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and which is exceeding that limit shows > (such a process is necessarily not swapped). The third letter indicates whether a process is running with altered CPU scheduling priority (nice); if the process priority is reduced, an N is shown, if the process priority has been artificially raised then a < is shown; processes running without special treatment have just a blank. The final letter indicates any special treatment of the process for virtual memory replacement. Currently the possibilities are A (VA_ANOM), S (VA_SEQL), and a blank (VA_NORM). An A typically represents a lisp program in garbage collection; S is typical of large image processing programs which are using virtual memory to sequentially address voluminous data. OPTIONS -a Asks for information about all processes with terminals (ordinarily only one's own processes are displayed). -c Prints the command name, as stored internally in the system for purposes of accounting, rather than the Printed 5/12/88 1
PS(1) COMMAND REFERENCE PS(1) command arguments, which are kept in the process' address space. This is more reliable, if less informative, since the process is free to destroy the latter information. -e Asks for the environment to be printed as well as the arguments to the command. -f swapfile Swapfile is used as the name of a swap file to use instead of the default /dev/drum. -g Asks for all processes. Without this option, ps only prints interesting processes. Processes are deemed to be uninteresting if they are process group leaders. This normally eliminates top-level command interpreters and processes waiting for users to login on free terminals. -k corefile Causes corefile, a core image of the kernel, to be used in place of /dev/kmem and /dev/mem. This is used for postmortem system debugging. -l Asks for a long listing, with fields F, UID, PPID, CP, PRI, NI, ADDR, SIZE, RSS and WCHAN, as described in this document. -n namelist The file namelist is used as the file containing the system's namelist, where kernel symbols are obtained. Otherwise, kernel symbols are obtained from the table /dev/cvt (see cvt(4)). -p proclist The output is restricted to data about processes whose process ID's are given in proclist. Proclist is a list of process ID's separated from one another by a comma, or a list of process ID's enclosed in double quotes and separated from one another by a comma and/or one or more spaces. -s Adds the size SSIZ of the kernel stack of each process (for use by system maintainers) to the basic output format. -t termlist The output is restricted to data about processes whose controlling tty's are specified in termlist. Termlist is a list of tty's separated from one another by a comma, or a list of tty's enclosed in double quotes and separated from one another by a comma and/or one or more spaces. Tty's may be specified in one of two forms: the device's file name (e.g. tty04) or if the device's file name Printed 5/12/88 2
PS(1) COMMAND REFERENCE PS(1) starts with tty, just the digit identifier (e.g. 04). -u A user-oriented output is produced. This includes fields USER, %CPU, %MEM, SIZE, and RSS as described in this document. -v A version of the output containing virtual memory statistics is output. This includes fields SL, RE, PAGEIN, SIZE, RSS, LIM, TSIZ, TRS, %CPU and %MEM, described below. -w Use a wide output format (132 columns rather than 80); if repeated, e.g. ww, use arbitrarily wide output. This information is used to decide how much of long commands to print. -x Asks about processes with no terminal. Fields which are not common to all output formats: USER name of the owner of the process %CPU 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%. NI process scheduling increment (see setpriority(2)). SIZE virtual size of the process in pages (see getpagesize(2)). RSS real memory (resident set) size of the process in pages (see getpagesize(2)). LIM soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to setrlimit(2); if no limit has been specified then show as xx. TSIZ size of text (shared program) image. TRS size of resident (real memory) set of text. %MEM percentage of real memory used by this process. RE residency time of the process (seconds in core). SL sleep time of the process (seconds blocked). Printed 5/12/88 3
PS(1) COMMAND REFERENCE PS(1) PAGEIN number of disk i/o's resulting from references by the process to pages not loaded in core. UID numerical user-id of process owner. PPID numerical id of parent of process. CP short-term cpu utilization factor (used in scheduling). PRI process priority (non-positive when in non- interruptible wait). Note: This is a different number than the priority for the nice command and the setpriority(2) function call. ADDR swap address of the process. WCHAN event on which process is waiting (an address in the system), with the initial two digits of the address trimmed off, e.g. 81004000 prints as 4000. F flags associated with process as in <sys/proc.h>: SLOAD 0000001 in core SSYS 0000002 swapper or pager process SLOCK 0000004 process being swapped out SSWAP 0000008 save area flag STRC 0000010 process is being traced SWTED 0000020 another tracing flag SULOCK 0000040 user settable lock in core SPAGE 0000080 process in page wait state SKEEP 0000100 another flag to prevent swap out SOMASK 0000200 restore old mask after taking signal SWEXIT 0000400 working on exiting SPHYSIO 0000800 doing physical i/o (bio.c) SVFORK 0001000 process resulted from vfork() SVFDONE 0002000 another vfork flag SNOVM 0004000 no vm, parent in a vfork() SPAGI 0008000 init data space on demand from inode SSEQL 0010000 user warned of sequential vm behavior SUANOM 0020000 user warned of anomalous vm behavior STIMO 0040000 timing out during sleep SOUSIG 0100000 using old signal mechanism SOWEUPC 0200000 owe process an addupc() call at next ast SSEL 0400000 selecting; wakeup/waiting danger SLOGIN 0800000 a login process (legit child of init) SPTECHG 1000000 pte's for process have changed Printed 5/12/88 4
PS(1) COMMAND REFERENCE PS(1) A process that has exited and has a parent, but has not yet been waited for by the parent is marked <defunct>; a process which is blocked trying to exit is marked <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 counted on too much. FILES /dev/cvt Table of kernel symbols /dev/kmem Kernel memory /dev/drum Swap device /dev Searched to find swap device and tty names DIAGNOSTICS The diagnostices produced by ps are intended to be self- explanatory. RETURN VALUE [NO_ERRS] Command completed without error. [NP_WARN] An error warranting a warning message occurred. Execution continues. [NP_ERR] An error occurred that was not a system error. Execution terminated. [P_ERR] A system error occurred. Execution terminated. See intro(2) for more information on system errors. CAVEATS Things can change while ps is running; the picture it gives is only a close approximation to reality. For compatibility, the "old" ps syntax is also supported. This syntax is: ps [ acegklsuvwx[#|tn] [ namelist [ corefile [ swapfile ] ] ] ] SEE ALSO kill(1), w(1), and cvt(4). Printed 5/12/88 5
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