pcp-ps(1) — Linux manual page

NAME \| SYNOPSIS \| DESCRIPTION \| OPTIONS \| STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS \| NOTES \| PCP ENVIRONMENT \| SEE ALSO \| COLOPHON

PCP-PS(1)                General Commands Manual                PCP-PS(1)

NAME top

       pcp-ps - Report statistics for Linux Process.

SYNOPSIS top

       pcp [pcp options] ps [-e] [-U [username]] [-V --version] [-c
       Command name] [-P pid1,pid2..]  [-p pid1,pid2..]  [-o col1,col2...
       or ALL] [-Z timezone] [-z] [-?]

DESCRIPTION top

       The pcp-ps command is used for monitoring individual process
       running on the system.  Using various options it helps a user to
       see useful information related to the processes.  This information
       includes CPU percentage, memory and stack usage, scheduling and
       priority.  By default pcp-ps reports live data for the local host.

OPTIONS top

When invoked via the pcp(1) command, the -h/--host, -O/--origin,
-t/--interval, -Z/--timezone and several other pcp options become
indirectly available; refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete
description of these options.

The additional command line options available for pcp-ps are:

-e Display all the process.
PID Process identifier.
TTY The terminal associated with the process.
TIME The cumulated CPU time in [DD-]hh:mm:ss format
(time=TIME).
CMD The task name along with its complete arguments.

-c [command name]
Display the real Command name of the tasks being monitored
instead of the UID. If command name is specified, then only
tasks belonging to the specified command are displayed.

-U [username], --user-name[=username]
Display the real user name of the tasks being monitored
instead of the UID. If username is specified, then only
tasks belonging to the specified user are displayed.

-V, --version
Print version number then exit.

-p pid1,pid2.., --pid-list=pid1,pid2..
Display only processes with the listed PIDs.

-P ppid1,ppid2.., --ppid-list=ppid1,ppid2..
Display only processes with the listed PPIDs.

-o User-defined format.

It is a single argument in the form of a blank-separated or
comma-separated list, which offers a way to specify
individual output columns.

The argument to -o are following:

COL HEADER DESCRIPTION
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
%cpu %CPU cpu utilization of the process
%mem %MEM physical memory on the machine expressed
as a percentage
start START time the command started
time TIME accumulated cpu time, user + system
cls CLS scheduling class of the process.
cmd CMD see Task name. (alias args, command).
args COMMAND To display the full program name with its
arguments (use at last position in -o list
to view full command)
pid PID The process ID
ppid PPID Parent process ID
pri PRI Priority of the process
state S see s
rss RSS the non-swapped physical memory that a
task has used
rtprio RTPRIO real-time priority
pname Pname Process name
tty TT controlling tty (terminal)
uid UID see euid
uname USER see euser
vsize VSZ see vsz
wchan WCHAN name of the kernel function in which the
process is sleeping

STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS top

Here are the different keywords that may be used to control the
output format (e.g. with option -o) or to sort the selected
processes

For example: pcp-ps -o pid,user,args

CODE HEADER DESCRIPTION
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
pid PID a number representing the process ID
%cpu %CPU %cpu utilization of the process in "##.#"
format.
Currently, it is the CPU time used divided by
the time the process has been running
(cputime/realtime ratio), expressed as a
percentage.
%mem %MEM %ratio of the process's resident set size to
the physical memory on the machine, expressed as
a percentage.
args COMMAND Command with all its arguments as a string.
Modifications to the arguments may be shown.
The output in this column may contain spaces. A
process marked <defunct> is partly dead, waiting
to be fully destroyed by its parent. Sometimes
the process args will be unavailable; when this
happens,will instead print the executable name
in brackets.
class CLS scheduling class of the process.
Field's possible values are: - not reported
TS SCHED_OTHER
FF SCHED_FIFO
RR SCHED_RR
B SCHED_BATCH
ISO SCHED_ISO
IDL SCHED_IDLE
DLN SCHED_DEADLINE
? unknown value
s S minimal state display. See also state if you
want additional information displayed.
euid EUID effective user ID.
vsz VSZ virtual memory size of the process in KiB
(1024-byte units). Device mappings are
currently excluded; this is subject to change.
euser EUSER effective user name. This will be the textual
user ID, if it can be obtained and the field
width permits, or a decimal representation
otherwise.
All N/A This option shows USER, PID, PPID, PRI, %CPU,
%MEM, VSZ, RSS, S, START, TIME, WCHAN and
COMMAND.

-Z timezone, --timezone=timezone
By default, pcp-ps reports the time of day according to the
local timezone on the system where pcp-ps is run. The -Z
option changes the timezone to timezone in the format of
the environment variable TZ as described in environ(7).

-z , --hostzone
Change the reporting timezone to the local timezone at the
host that is the source of the performance metrics. When
replaying a PCP archive that was captured in a foreign
timezone, the -z option would almost always be used (the
default reporting timezone is the local timezone, which may
not be the same as the timezone of the PCP archive).

-? , --help
Display usage message and exit.

NOTES top

       pcp-ps is inspired by the ps(1) command and aims to be command
       line and output compatible with it.

PCP ENVIRONMENT top

       Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to
       parameterize the file and directory names used by PCP.  On each
       installation, the file /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for
       these variables.  The $PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an
       alternative configuration file, as described in pcp.conf(5).

       For environment variables affecting PCP tools, see
       pmGetOptions(3).

COLOPHON top

       This page is part of the PCP (Performance Co-Pilot) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.pcp.io/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, send it to pcp@groups.io.  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/performancecopilot/pcp.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2025-08-11.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Performance Co-Pilot               PCP                          PCP-PS(1)

Pages that refer to this page: pcp-ps(1)