User Commands ps(1)
NAME
ps - report process status
SYNOPSIS
ps [-aAcdefjHlLPyZ] [-g grplist] [-h lgrplist]
[-n namelist] [-o format]... [-p proclist]
[-s sidlist] [-t term] [-u uidlist] [-U uidlist]
[-G gidlist] [-z zonelist]
DESCRIPTION
The ps command prints information about active processes.
Without options, ps prints information about processes that
have the same effective user ID and the same controllingterminal as the invoker. The output contains only the pro-
cess ID, terminal identifier, cumulative execution time, and the command name. Otherwise, the information that is displayed is controlled by the options. Some options accept lists as arguments. Items in a list can be either separated by commas or else enclosed in quotes and separated by commas or spaces. Values for proclist and grplist must be numeric. OPTIONS The following options are supported:-a Lists information about all processes most
frequently requested: all those except ses-
sion leaders and processes not associated with a terminal.-A Lists information for all processes. Identi-
cal to -e, below.
-c Prints information in a format that reflects
scheduler properties as described inpriocntl(1). The -c option affects the output
of the -f and -l options, as described below.
-d Lists information about all processes except
session leaders.-e Lists information about every process now
running.When the -eoption is specified, options -z,
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User Commands ps(1)
-t, -u, -U, -g, -G, -p, -g, -s and -a options
have no effect.-f Generates a full listing. (See below for sig-
nificance of columns in a full listing.)-g grplist Lists only process data whose group leader's
ID number(s) appears in grplist. (A group leader is a process whose process ID number is identical to its process group ID number.)-G gidlist Lists information for processes whose real
group ID numbers are given in gidlist. The gidlist must be a single argument in the formof a blank- or comma-separated list.
-h lgrplist Lists only the processes homed to the speci-
fied lgrplist. Nothing is listed for any invalid group specified in lgrplist.-H Prints the home lgroup of the process under
an additional column header, LGRP.-j Prints session ID and process group ID.
-l Generates a long listing. (See below.)
-L Prints information about each light weight
process (lwp) in each selected process. (See below.)-n namelist Specifies the name of an alternative system
namelist file in place of the default. This option is accepted for compatibility, but is ignored.-o format Prints information according to the format
specification given in format. This is fullydescribed in DISPLAY FORMATS. Multiple -o
options can be specified; the format specifi-
cation is interpreted as the space-
character-separated concatenation of all the
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User Commands ps(1)
format option-arguments.
-p proclist Lists only process data whose process ID
numbers are given in proclist.-P Prints the number of the processor to which
the process or lwp is bound, if any, under an additional column header, PSR.-s sidlist Lists information on all session leaders
whose IDs appear in sidlist.-t term Lists only process data associated with term.
Terminal identifiers are specified as a dev-
ice file name, and an identifier. For exam-
ple, term/a, or pts/0.-u uidlist Lists only process data whose effective user
ID number or login name is given in uidlist. In the listing, the numerical user ID isprinted unless you give the -f option, which
prints the login name.-U uidlist Lists information for processes whose real
user ID numbers or login names are given inuidlist. The uidlist must be a single argu-
ment in the form of a blank- or comma-
separated list.-y Under a long listing (-l), omits the obsolete
F and ADDR columns and includes an RSS columnto report the resident set size of the pro-
cess. Under the -y option, both RSS and SZ
(see below) is reported in units of kilobytes instead of pages.-z zonelist Lists only processes in the specified zones.
Zones can be specified either by name or ID. This option is only useful when executed in the global zone.-Z Prints the name of the zone with which the
process is associated under an additionalSunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 3
User Commands ps(1)
column header, ZONE. The ZONE column width islimited to 8 characters. Use ps -eZ for a
quick way to see information about every pro-
cess now running along with the associated zone name. Useps -eo zone,uid,pid,ppid,time,comm,...
to see zone names wider than 8 characters. Many of the options shown are used to select processes to list. If any are specified, the default list is ignored andps selects the processes represented by the inclusive OR of
all the selection-criteria options.
DISPLAY FORMATSUnder the -f option, ps tries to determine the command name
and arguments given when the process was created by examin-
ing the user block. Failing this, the command name isprinted, as it would have appeared without the -f option, in
square brackets.The column headings and the meaning of the columns in a ps
listing are given below; the letters f and l indicate the option (full or long, respectively) that causes the corresponding heading to appear; all means that the heading always appears. Note: These two options determine only what information is provided for a process; they do not determine which processes are listed. F(l) Flags (hexadecimal and additive) associated with the process. These flags are available for historical purposes; no meaning should be currently ascribed to them. S (l) The state of the process: O Process is running on a processor. S Sleeping: process is waiting for an event to complete. R Runnable: process is on run queue.SunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 4
User Commands ps(1)
T Process is stopped, either by a job con-
trol signal or because it is being traced. W Waiting: process is waiting for CPU usageto drop to the CPU-caps enforced limits.
Z Zombie state: process terminated and parent not waiting. UID (f,l) The effective user ID number of the process(the login name is printed under the -f
option). PID(all) The process ID of the process (this datum is necessary in order to kill a process). PPID(f,l) The process ID of the parent process. C(f,l) Processor utilization for scheduling(obsolete). Not printed when the -c option is
used.CLS(f,l) Scheduling class. Printed only when the -c
option is used.PRI(l) The priority of the process. Without the -c
option, higher numbers mean lower priority.With the -c option, higher numbers mean higher
priority. NI(l) Nice value, used in priority computation. Notprinted when the -c option is used. Only
processes in the certain scheduling classes have a nice value. ADDR(l) The memory address of the process. SZ(l) The total size of the process in virtual memory, including all mapped files andSunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 5
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devices, in pages. See pagesize(1). WCHAN(l) The address of an event for which the processis sleeping (if blank, the process is run-
ning). STIME(f) The starting time of the process, given in hours, minutes, and seconds. (A process begunmore than twenty-four hours before the ps
inquiry is executed is given in months and days.) TTY(all) The controlling terminal for the process (themessage, ?, is printed when there is no con-
trolling terminal). TIME(all) The cumulative execution time for the process. LTIME(all) The execution time for the lwp being reported. CMD(all) The command name (the full command name and its arguments, up to a limit of 80 characters,are printed under the -f option).
The following two additional columns are printed when the -j
option is specified: PGID The process ID of the process group leader. SID The process ID of the session leader.The following two additional columns are printed when the -L
option is specified: LWP The lwp ID of the lwp being reported.NLWP The number of lwps in the process (if -f is also
specified).SunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 6
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Under the -L option, one line is printed for each lwp in the
process and the time-reporting fields STIME and LTIME show
the values for the lwp, not the process. A traditionalsingle-threaded process contains only one lwp.
A process that has exited and has a parent, but has not yet been waited for by the parent, is marked. -o format
The -o option allows the output format to be specified under
user control. The format specification must be a list of names presentedas a single argument, blank- or comma-separated. Each vari-
able has a default header. The default header can be over-
ridden by appending an equals sign and the new text of the header. The rest of the characters in the argument is used as the header text. The fields specified are written in the order specified on the command line, and should be arranged in columns in the output. The field widths are 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 is at least as wide as the
default header text. If all header text fields are null, no header line is written. The following names are recognized in the POSIX locale: user The effective user ID of the process. This is the textual user ID, if it can be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.ruser The real user ID of the process. This is the tex-
tual user ID, if it can be obtained and the fieldwidth permits, or a decimal representation other-
wise. group The effective group ID of the process. This is the textual group 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 is the tex-
tual group ID, if it can be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal representationSunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 7
User Commands ps(1)
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 timeavailable in the same period, expressed as a per-
centage. The meaning of ``recently'' in this con-
text is unspecified. The CPU time available is determined in an unspecified manner. vsz The total size of the process in virtual memory, in kilobytes.nice The decimal value of the system scheduling prior-
ity of the process. See nice(1).etime In the POSIX locale, the elapsed time since the
process was started, in the form:[[dd-]hh:]mm:ss
where dd is the number of days hh is the number of hours mm is the number of minutes ss is the number of seconds The dd field is a decimal integer. The hh, mm andss fields is 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:SunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 8
User Commands ps(1)
[dd-]hh:mm:ss
The dd, hh, mm, and ss fields is as described in the etime specifier.tty The name of the controlling terminal of the pro-
cess (if any) in the same format used by the who(1) command. 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 might truncate this value tothe field width; it is implementation-dependent
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 might have been modified by the application. Applications cannot depend onbeing able to modify their argument list and hav-
ing that modification be reflected in the outputof ps. The Solaris implementation limits the
string to 80 bytes; the string is the version of the argument list as it was passed to the command when it started.The following names are recognized in the Solaris implemen-
tation: f Flags (hexadecimal and additive) associated with the process. s The state of the process. c Processor utilization for scheduling (obsolete). uid The effective user ID number of the process as a decimal integer. ruid The real user ID number of the process as a decimal integer.SunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 9
User Commands ps(1)
gid The effective group ID number of the process as a decimal integer. rgid The real group ID number of the process as a decimal integer. projid The project ID number of the process as a decimal integer. project The project ID of the process as a textual value if that value can be obtained; otherwise, as a decimal integer. zoneid The zone ID number of the process as a decimal integer. zone The zone ID of the process as a textual value if that value can be obtained; otherwise, as a decimal integer. sid The process ID of the session leader. taskid The task ID of the process. class The scheduling class of the process. pri The priority of the process. Higher numbers mean higher priority. opri The obsolete priority of the process. Lower numbers mean higher priority. lwp The decimal value of the lwp ID. Requesting this formatting option causes one line to be printed for each lwp in the process.nlwp The number of lwps in the process.
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psr The number of the processor to which the process
or lwp is bound.pset The ID of the processor set to which the process
or lwp is bound. addr The memory address of the process. osz The total size of the process in virtual memory, in pages. wchan The address of an event for which the process issleeping (if -, the process is running).
stime The starting time or date of the process, printed with no blanks.rss The resident set size of the process, in kilo-
bytes. The rss value reported by ps is an esti-
mate provided by proc(4) that might underestimate the actual resident set size. Users who wish to get more accurate usage information for capacityplanning should use pmap(1) -x instead.
pmem The ratio of the process's resident set size to the physical memory on the machine, expressed as a percentage. fname The first 8 bytes of the base name of the process's executable file.ctid The contract ID of the process contract the pro-
cess is a member of as a decimal integer. lgrp The home lgroup of the process. Only comm and args are allowed to contain blank characters; all others, including the Solaris implementation variables, are not.SunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 11
User Commands ps(1)
The following table specifies the default header to be used in the POSIX locale corresponding to each format specifier.__________________________________________________________________
| Format Default Format Default | | Specifier Header Specifier 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 ||_________________________________________________________________|
The following table lists the Solaris implementation format specifiers and the default header used with each.SunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 12
User Commands ps(1)
__________________________________________________________________
| Format Default Format Default | | Specifier Header Specifier Header ||_________________________________________________________________|
| addr ADDR projid PROJID | | c C project PROJECT || class CLS psr PSR |
| f F rgid RGID | | fname COMMAND rss RSS | | gid GID ruid RUID | | lgrp LGRP s S | | lwp LWP sid SID | | nlwp NLWP stime STIME | | opri PRI taskid TASKID | | osz SZ uid UID || pmem %MEM wchan WCHAN |
| pri PRI zone ZONE | | ctid CTID zoneid ZONEID ||_________________________________________________________________|
EXAMPLES
Example 1 Using ps Command
The command:example% ps -o user,pid,ppid=MOM -o args
writes the following in the POSIX locale: USER PID MOM COMMANDhelene 34 12 ps -o uid,pid,ppid=MOM -o args
The contents of the COMMAND field need not be the same due to possible truncation. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environmentvariables that affect the execution of ps: LANG, LC_ALL,
LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, LC_TIME, and NLSPATH.
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COLUMNS Override the system-selected horizontal screen
size, used to determine the number of text columns to display. EXIT STATUS The following exit values are returned: 0 Successful completion. >0 An error occurred. FILES /dev/pts/* /dev/term/* terminal (``tty'') names searcher files /etc/passwd UID information supplier /proc/* process control filesATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:SunOS 5.11 Last change: 16 Aug 2009 14
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____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWcs ||_____________________________|_____________________________|
| CSI | Enabled (see USAGE) |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Interface Stability | Committed ||_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Standard | See standards(5). ||_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
kill(1), lgrpinfo(1), nice(1), pagesize(1), pmap(1),priocntl(1), who(1), getty(1M), proc(4), ttysrch(4), attri-
butes(5), environ(5), resource_controls(5), standards(5),
zones(5) NOTESThings can change while ps is running. The snapshot it gives
is true only for a split-second, and it might not be accu-
rate by the time you see it. Some data printed for defunct processes is irrelevant.If no options to select processes are specified, ps reports
all processes associated with the controlling terminal. If there is no controlling terminal, there is no report other than the header.ps -ef or ps -o stime might not report the actual start of a
tty login session, but rather an earlier time, when a getty was last respawned on the tty line.ps is CSI-enabled except for login names (usernames).
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