ps(1p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

PS(1P)                  POSIX Programmer's Manual                 PS(1P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
       or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       ps — report process status

SYNOPSIS         top

       ps [-aA] [-defl] [-g grouplist] [-G grouplist]
           [-n namelist] [-o format]... [-p proclist] [-t termlist]
           [-u userlist] [-U userlist]

DESCRIPTION         top

       The ps utility shall write information about processes, subject
       to having appropriate privileges to obtain information about
       those processes.

       By default, ps shall select all processes with the same effective
       user ID as the current user and the same controlling terminal as
       the invoker.

OPTIONS         top

       The ps utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
       POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -a        Write information for all processes associated with
                 terminals.  Implementations may omit session leaders
                 from this list.

       -A        Write information for all processes.

       -d        Write information for all processes, except session
                 leaders.

       -e        Write information for all processes.  (Equivalent to
                 -A.)

       -f        Generate a full listing. (See the STDOUT section for
                 the contents of a full listing.)

       -g grouplist
                 Write information for processes whose session leaders
                 are given in grouplist.  The application shall ensure
                 that the grouplist is a single argument in the form of
                 a <blank> or <comma>-separated list.

       -G grouplist
                 Write information for processes whose real group ID
                 numbers are given in grouplist.  The application shall
                 ensure that the grouplist is a single argument in the
                 form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list.

       -l        Generate a long listing. (See STDOUT for the contents
                 of a long listing.)

       -n namelist
                 Specify the name of an alternative system namelist file
                 in place of the default. The name of the default file
                 and the format of a namelist file are unspecified.

       -o format Write information according to the format specification
                 given in format.  This is fully described in the STDOUT
                 section. Multiple -o options can be specified; the
                 format specification shall be interpreted as the
                 <space>-separated concatenation of all the format
                 option-arguments.

       -p proclist
                 Write information for processes whose process ID
                 numbers are given in proclist.  The application shall
                 ensure that the proclist is a single argument in the
                 form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list.

       -t termlist
                 Write information for processes associated with
                 terminals given in termlist.  The application shall
                 ensure that the termlist is a single argument in the
                 form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list. Terminal
                 identifiers shall be given in an implementation-defined
                 format.  On XSI-conformant systems, they shall be given
                 in one of two forms: the device's filename (for
                 example, tty04) or, if the device's filename starts
                 with tty, just the identifier following the characters
                 tty (for example, "04").

       -u userlist
                 Write information for processes whose user ID numbers
                 or login names are given in userlist.  The application
                 shall ensure that the userlist is a single argument in
                 the form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list. In the
                 listing, the numerical user ID shall be written unless
                 the -f option is used, in which case the login name
                 shall be written.

       -U userlist
                 Write information for processes whose real user ID
                 numbers or login names are given in userlist.  The
                 application shall ensure that the userlist is a single
                 argument in the form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated
                 list.

       With the exception of -f, -l, -n namelist, and -o format, all of
       the options shown are used to select processes. If any are
       specified, the default list shall be ignored and ps shall select
       the processes represented by the inclusive OR of all the
       selection-criteria options.

OPERANDS         top

       None.

STDIN         top

       Not used.

INPUT FILES         top

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       ps:

       COLUMNS   Override the system-selected horizontal display line
                 size, used to determine the number of text columns to
                 display. See the Base Definitions volume of
                 POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8, Environment Variables for
                 valid values and results when it is unset or null.

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
                 Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables the precedence of
                 internationalization variables used to determine the
                 values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL    If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
                 of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of
                 sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for
                 example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte
                 characters in arguments).

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
                 format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
                 standard error and informative messages written to
                 standard output.

       LC_TIME   Determine the format and contents of the date and time
                 strings displayed.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the
                 processing of LC_MESSAGES.

       TZ        Determine the timezone used to calculate date and time
                 strings displayed. If TZ is unset or null, an
                 unspecified default timezone shall be used.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS         top

       Default.

STDOUT         top

       When the -o option is not specified, the standard output format
       is unspecified.

       On XSI-conformant systems, the output format shall be as follows.
       The column headings and descriptions of the columns in a ps
       listing are given below. The precise meanings of these fields are
       implementation-defined. The letters 'f' and 'l' (below) indicate
       the option (full or long) that shall cause the corresponding
       heading to appear; all means that the heading always appears.
       Note that these two options determine only what information is
       provided for a process; they do not determine which processes are
       listed.
       F       (l)     Flags (octal and additive) associated with
                       the process.
       S       (l)     The state of the process.
       UID     (f,l)   The user ID number of the process owner;
                       the login name is printed under the -f
                       option.
       PID     (all)   The process ID of the process; it is
                       possible to kill a process if this datum is
                       known.
       PPID    (f,l)   The process ID of the parent process.
       C       (f,l)   Processor utilization for scheduling.
       PRI     (l)     The priority of the process; higher numbers
                       mean lower priority.
       NI      (l)     Nice value; used in priority computation.
       ADDR    (l)     The address of the process.
       SZ      (l)     The size in blocks of the core image of the
                       process.
       WCHAN   (l)     The event for which the process is waiting
                       or sleeping; if blank, the process is
                       running.
       STIME   (f)     Starting time of the process.
       TTY     (all)   The controlling terminal for the process.
       TIME    (all)   The cumulative execution time for the
                       process.
       CMD     (all)   The command name; the full command name and
                       its arguments are written under the -f
                       option.

       A process that has exited and has a parent, but has not yet been
       waited for by the parent, shall be marked defunct.

       Under the option -f, ps tries to determine the command name and
       arguments given when the process was created by examining memory
       or the swap area. Failing this, the command name, as it would
       appear without the option -f, is written in square brackets.

       The -o option allows the output format to be specified under user
       control.

       The application shall ensure that the format specification is a
       list of names presented as a single argument, <blank> or
       <comma>-separated.  Each variable has a default header. The
       default header can be overridden by appending an <equals-sign>
       and the new text of the header. The rest of the characters in the
       argument shall be used as the header text. The fields specified
       shall be written in the order specified on the command line, and
       should be arranged in columns in the output. The field widths
       shall be selected by the system to be at least as wide as the
       header text (default or overridden value). If the header text is
       null, such as -o user=, the field width shall be at least as wide
       as the default header text.  If all header text fields are null,
       no header line shall be written.

       The following names are recognized in the POSIX locale:

       ruser   The real user ID of the process. This shall be the
               textual user ID, if it can be obtained and the field
               width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.

       user    The effective user ID of the process. This shall be the
               textual user ID, if it can be obtained and the field
               width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.

       rgroup  The real group ID of the process. This shall be the
               textual group ID, if it can be obtained and the field
               width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.

       group   The effective group ID of the process. This shall be the
               textual group ID, if it can be obtained and the field
               width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.

       pid     The decimal value of the process ID.

       ppid    The decimal value of the parent process ID.

       pgid    The decimal value of the process group ID.

       pcpu    The ratio of CPU time used recently to CPU time available
               in the same period, expressed as a percentage. The
               meaning of ``recently'' in this context is unspecified.
               The CPU time available is determined in an unspecified
               manner.

       vsz     The size of the process in (virtual) memory in 1024 byte
               units as a decimal integer.

       nice    The decimal value of the nice value of the process; see
               nice.

       etime   In the POSIX locale, the elapsed time since the process
               was started, in the form:

                   [[dd-]hh:]mm:ss

               where dd shall represent the number of days, hh the
               number of hours, mm the number of minutes, and ss the
               number of seconds. The dd field shall be a decimal
               integer. The hh, mm, and ss fields shall be two-digit
               decimal integers padded on the left with zeros.

       time    In the POSIX locale, the cumulative CPU time of the
               process in the form:

                   [dd-]hh:mm:ss

               The dd, hh, mm, and ss fields shall be as described in
               the etime specifier.

       tty     The name of the controlling terminal of the process (if
               any) in the same format used by the who utility.

       comm    The name of the command being executed (argv[0] value) as
               a string.

       args    The command with all its arguments as a string. The
               implementation may truncate this value to the field
               width; it is implementation-defined whether any further
               truncation occurs. It is unspecified whether the string
               represented is a version of the argument list as it was
               passed to the command when it started, or is a version of
               the arguments as they may have been modified by the
               application. Applications cannot depend on being able to
               modify their argument list and having that modification
               be reflected in the output of ps.

       Any field need not be meaningful in all implementations. In such
       a case a <hyphen-minus> ('-') should be output in place of the
       field value.

       Only comm and args shall be allowed to contain <blank>
       characters; all others shall not. Any implementation-defined
       variables shall be specified in the system documentation along
       with the default header and indicating whether the field may
       contain <blank> characters.

       The following table specifies the default header to be used in
       the POSIX locale corresponding to each format specifier.

                Table: Variable Names and Default Headers in ps
   ┌───────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐
   │ Format Specifier   Default Header Format Specifier   Default Header │
   ├───────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
   │ args               COMMAND        ppid               PPID           │
   │ comm               COMMAND        rgroup             RGROUP         │
   │ etime              ELAPSED        ruser              RUSER          │
   │ group              GROUP          time               TIME           │
   │ nice               NI             tty                TT             │
   │ pcpu               %CPU           user               USER           │
   │ pgid               PGID           vsz                VSZ            │
   │ pid                PID            │                                   │
   └───────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘

STDERR         top

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES         top

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION         top

       None.

EXIT STATUS         top

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Successful completion.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS         top

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       Things can change while ps is running; the snapshot it gives is
       only true for an instant, and might not be accurate by the time
       it is displayed.

       The args format specifier is allowed to produce a truncated
       version of the command arguments. In some implementations, this
       information is no longer available when the ps utility is
       executed.

       If the field width is too narrow to display a textual ID, the
       system may use a numeric version. Normally, the system would be
       expected to choose large enough field widths, but if a large
       number of fields were selected to write, it might squeeze fields
       to their minimum sizes to fit on one line. One way to ensure
       adequate width for the textual IDs is to override the default
       header for a field to make it larger than most or all user or
       group names.

       There is no special quoting mechanism for header text. The header
       text is the rest of the argument. If multiple header changes are
       needed, multiple -o options can be used, such as:

           ps -o "user=User Name" -o pid=Process\ ID

       On some implementations, especially multi-level secure systems,
       ps may be severely restricted and produce information only about
       child processes owned by the user.

EXAMPLES         top

       The command:

           ps -o user,pid,ppid=MOM -o args

       writes at least the following in the POSIX locale:

             USER   PID   MOM   COMMAND
           helene    34    12   ps -o uid,pid,ppid=MOM -o args

       The contents of the COMMAND field need not be the same in all
       implementations, due to possible truncation.

RATIONALE         top

       There is very little commonality between BSD and System V
       implementations of ps.  Many options conflict or have subtly
       different usages. The standard developers attempted to select a
       set of options for the base standard that were useful on a wide
       range of systems and selected options that either can be
       implemented on both BSD and System V-based systems without
       breaking the current implementations or where the options are
       sufficiently similar that any changes would not be unduly
       problematic for users or implementors.

       It is recognized that on some implementations, especially multi-
       level secure systems, ps may be nearly useless. The default
       output has therefore been chosen such that it does not break
       historical implementations and also is likely to provide at least
       some useful information on most systems.

       The major change is the addition of the format specification
       capability. The motivation for this invention is to provide a
       mechanism for users to access a wider range of system
       information, if the system permits it, in a portable manner. The
       fields chosen to appear in this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 were
       arrived at after considering what concepts were likely to be both
       reasonably useful to the ``average'' user and had a reasonable
       chance of being implemented on a wide range of systems. Again it
       is recognized that not all systems are able to provide all the
       information and, conversely, some may wish to provide more. It is
       hoped that the approach adopted will be sufficiently flexible and
       extensible to accommodate most systems. Implementations may be
       expected to introduce new format specifiers.

       The default output should consist of a short listing containing
       the process ID, terminal name, cumulative execution time, and
       command name of each process.

       The preference of the standard developers would have been to make
       the format specification an operand of the ps command.
       Unfortunately, BSD usage precluded this.

       At one time a format was included to display the environment
       array of the process. This was deleted because there is no
       portable way to display it.

       The -A option is equivalent to the BSD -g and the SVID -e.
       Because the two systems differed, a mnemonic compromise was
       selected.

       The -a option is described with some optional behavior because
       the SVID omits session leaders, but BSD does not.

       In an early proposal, format specifiers appeared for priority and
       start time. The former was not defined adequately in this volume
       of POSIX.1‐2017 and was removed in deference to the defined nice
       value; the latter because elapsed time was considered to be more
       useful.

       In a new BSD version of ps, a -O option can be used to write all
       of the default information, followed by additional format
       specifiers. This was not adopted because the default output is
       implementation-defined. Nevertheless, this is a useful option
       that should be reserved for that purpose. In the -o option for
       the POSIX Shell and Utilities ps, the format is the concatenation
       of each -o.  Therefore, the user can have an alias or function
       that defines the beginning of their desired format and add more
       fields to the end of the output in certain cases where that would
       be useful.

       The format of the terminal name is unspecified, but the
       descriptions of ps, talk, who, and write require that they all
       use the same format.

       The pcpu field indicates that the CPU time available is
       determined in an unspecified manner. This is because it is
       difficult to express an algorithm that is useful across all
       possible machine architectures.  Historical counterparts to this
       value have attempted to show percentage of use in the recent
       past, such as the preceding minute. Frequently, these values for
       all processes did not add up to 100%. Implementations are
       encouraged to provide data in this field to users that will help
       them identify processes currently affecting the performance of
       the system.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       kill(1p), nice(1p), renice(1p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
       Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The
       Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
       Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be
       obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group               2017                            PS(1P)

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