man > ps(1)

TLDR: ps (tldr-pages)

Information about running processes.

  • List all running processes
    ps aux
  • List all running processes including the full command string
    ps auxww
  • Search for a process that matches a string (the brackets will prevent `grep` from matching itself)
    ps aux | grep {{s]tring}}
  • List all processes of the current user in extra full format
    ps {{-u|--user}} $(id {{-u|--user}}) -F
  • List all processes of the current user as a tree
    ps {{-u|--user}} $(id {{-u|--user}}) f
  • Get the parent PID of a process
    ps {{-o|--format}} ppid= {{-p|--pid}} {{pid}}
  • Sort processes by memory consumption
    ps {{k|--sort}} size
  • Display threads for a specific process
    ps -L {{-p|--pid}} {{process_id}}
PS(1)                                       User Commands                                      PS(1)

NAME
       ps - report a snapshot of the current processes.

SYNOPSIS
       ps [options]

DESCRIPTION
       ps displays information about a selection of the active processes.  If you want a repetitive
       update of the selection and the displayed information, use top instead.

       This version of ps accepts several kinds of options:

       1   UNIX options, which may be grouped and must be preceded by a dash.
       2   BSD options, which may be grouped and must not be used with a dash.
       3   GNU long options, which are preceded by two dashes.

       Options  of  different  types  may be freely mixed, but conflicts can appear.  There are some
       synonymous options, which are functionally identical,  due  to  the  many  standards  and  ps
       implementations that this ps is compatible with.

       By  default,  ps  selects  all  processes  with the same effective user ID (euid=EUID) as the
       current user and associated with the same terminal as the invoker.  It displays  the  process
       ID (pid=PID), the terminal associated with the process (tname=TTY), the cumulated CPU time in
       [DD-]hh:mm:ss  format (time=TIME), and the executable name (ucmd=CMD).  Output is unsorted by
       default.

       The use of BSD-style options will add process state (stat=STAT) to the  default  display  and
       show  the  command args (args=COMMAND) instead of the executable name.  You can override this
       with the PS_FORMAT environment variable.  The use of BSD-style options will also  change  the
       process  selection  to  include  processes  on  other terminals (TTYs) that are owned by you;
       alternately, this may be described as setting the selection to be the set  of  all  processes
       filtered  to  exclude processes owned by other users or not on a terminal.  These effects are
       not considered when options  are  described  as  being  "identical"  below,  so  -M  will  be
       considered identical to Z and so on.

       Except  as described below, process selection options are additive.  The default selection is
       discarded, and then the selected processes are added to the set of processes to be displayed.
       A process will thus be shown if it meets any of the given selection criteria.

EXAMPLES
       To see every process on the system using standard syntax:
          ps -e
          ps -ef
          ps -eF
          ps -ely

       To see every process on the system using BSD syntax:
          ps ax
          ps axu

       To print a process tree:
          ps -ejH
          ps axjf

       To get info about threads:
          ps -eLf
          ps axms

       To get security info:
          ps -eo euser,ruser,suser,fuser,f,comm,label
          ps axZ
          ps -eM

       To see every process running as root (real & effective ID) in user format:
          ps -U root -u root u

       To see every process with a user-defined format:
          ps -eo pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,psr,pcpu,stat,wchan:14,comm
          ps axo stat,euid,ruid,tty,tpgid,sess,pgrp,ppid,pid,pcpu,comm
          ps -Ao pid,tt,user,fname,tmout,f,wchan

       Print only the process IDs of syslogd:
          ps -C syslogd -o pid=

       Print only the name of PID 42:
          ps -q 42 -o comm=

SIMPLE PROCESS SELECTION
       a      Lift the BSD-style "only yourself" restriction, which is imposed upon the set  of  all
              processes  when  some  BSD-style  (without  "-")  options  are  used  or  when  the ps
              personality setting is BSD-like.  The set of processes selected in this manner  is  in
              addition to the set of processes selected by other means.  An alternate description is
              that this option causes ps to list all processes with a terminal (tty), or to list all
              processes when used together with the x option.

       -A     Select all processes.  Identical to -e.

       -a     Select  all  processes  except  both session leaders (see getsid(2)) and processes not
              associated with a terminal.

       -d     Select all processes except session leaders.

       --deselect
              Select all processes except those that fulfill the specified conditions  (negates  the
              selection).  Identical to -N.

       -e     Select all processes.  Identical to -A.

       g      Really  all, even session leaders.  This flag is obsolete and may be discontinued in a
              future release.  It is normally implied by  the  a  flag,  and  is  only  useful  when
              operating in the sunos4 personality.

       -N     Select  all  processes except those that fulfill the specified conditions (negates the
              selection).  Identical to --deselect.

       T      Select all processes associated with this terminal.  Identical to the t option without
              any argument.

       r      Restrict the selection to only running processes.

       x      Lift the BSD-style "must have a tty" restriction, which is imposed upon the set of all
              processes when  some  BSD-style  (without  "-")  options  are  used  or  when  the  ps
              personality  setting  is BSD-like.  The set of processes selected in this manner is in
              addition to the set of processes selected by other means.  An alternate description is
              that this option causes ps to list all processes owned by you (same EUID as ps), or to
              list all processes when used together with the a option.

PROCESS SELECTION BY LIST
       These options accept a single argument in the form of a  blank-separated  or  comma-separated
       list.  They can be used multiple times.  For example: ps -p "1 2" -p 3,4

       123    Identical to --pid 123.

       +123   Identical to --sid 123.

       -123   Select by process group ID (PGID).

       -C cmdlist
              Select  by command name.  This selects the processes whose executable name is given in
              cmdlist.  NOTE: The command name is  not  the  same  as  the  command  line.  Previous
              versions  of  procps and the kernel truncated this command name to 15 characters. This
              limitation is no longer  present  in  both.  If  you  depended  on  matching  only  15
              characters, you may no longer get a match.

       -G grplist
              Select  by  real group ID (RGID) or name.  This selects the processes whose real group
              name or ID is in the grplist list.  The real group ID identifies the group of the user
              who created the process, see getgid(2).

       -g grplist
              Select by session OR by effective group name.  Selection by session  is  specified  by
              many  standards, but selection by effective group is the logical behavior that several
              other operating systems use.  This  ps  will  select  by  session  when  the  list  is
              completely numeric (as sessions are).  Group ID numbers will work only when some group
              names are also specified.  See the -s and --group options.

       --Group grplist
              Select by real group ID (RGID) or name.  Identical to -G.

       --group grplist
              Select  by  effective  group  ID  (EGID)  or  name.   This selects the processes whose
              effective group name or ID is in grplist.  The effective group ID describes the  group
              whose file access permissions are used by the process (see getegid(2)).  The -g option
              is often an alternative to --group.

       p pidlist
              Select by process ID.  Identical to -p and --pid.

       -p pidlist
              Select by PID.  This selects the processes whose process ID numbers appear in pidlist.
              Identical to p and --pid.

       --pid pidlist
              Select by process ID.  Identical to -p and p.

       --ppid pidlist
              Select  by  parent process ID.  This selects the processes with a parent process ID in
              pidlist.  That is, it selects processes that are children of those listed in pidlist.

       q pidlist
              Select by process ID (quick mode).  Identical to -q and --quick-pid.

       -q pidlist
              Select by PID (quick mode).  This selects  the  processes  whose  process  ID  numbers
              appear  in  pidlist.   With  this option ps reads the necessary info only for the pids
              listed in the pidlist and doesn't apply additional filtering rules. The order of  pids
              is  unsorted  and  preserved. No additional selection options, sorting and forest type
              listings are allowed in this mode.  Identical to q and --quick-pid.

       --quick-pid pidlist
              Select by process ID (quick mode).  Identical to -q and q.

       -s sesslist
              Select by session ID.  This selects the processes  with  a  session  ID  specified  in
              sesslist.

       --sid sesslist
              Select by session ID.  Identical to -s.

       t ttylist
              Select  by  tty.  Nearly identical to -t and --tty, but can also be used with an empty
              ttylist to indicate the terminal associated with ps.  Using the T option is considered
              cleaner than using t with an empty ttylist.

       -t ttylist
              Select by tty.  This selects the processes associated  with  the  terminals  given  in
              ttylist.   Terminals  (ttys,  or  screens for text output) can be specified in several
              forms: /dev/ttyS1, ttyS1, S1.  A plain  "-"  may  be  used  to  select  processes  not
              attached to any terminal.

       --tty ttylist
              Select by terminal.  Identical to -t and t.

       U userlist
              Select  by  effective  user  ID  (EUID)  or  name.   This  selects the processes whose
              effective user name or ID is in userlist.  The effective user ID  describes  the  user
              whose  file access permissions are used by the process (see geteuid(2)).  Identical to
              -u and --user.

       -U userlist
              Select by real user ID (RUID) or name.  It selects the processes whose real user  name
              or  ID  is in the userlist list.  The real user ID identifies the user who created the
              process, see getuid(2).

       -u userlist
              Select by effective user  ID  (EUID)  or  name.   This  selects  the  processes  whose
              effective user name or ID is in userlist.

              The effective user ID describes the user whose file access permissions are used by the
              process (see geteuid(2)).  Identical to U and --user.

       --User userlist
              Select by real user ID (RUID) or name.  Identical to -U.

       --user userlist
              Select by effective user ID (EUID) or name.  Identical to -u and U.

OUTPUT FORMAT CONTROL
       These  options  are used to choose the information displayed by ps.  The output may differ by
       personality.

       -c     Show different scheduler information for the -l option.

       --context
              Display security context format (for SELinux).

       -f     Do full-format listing.  This option  can  be  combined  with  many  other  UNIX-style
              options  to  add  additional  columns.   It  also  causes  the command arguments to be
              printed.  When used with -L, the NLWP (number of threads) and LWP (thread ID)  columns
              will  be  added.   See  the  c option, the format keyword args, and the format keyword
              comm.

       -F     Extra full format.  See the -f option, which -F implies.

       --format format
              user-defined format.  Identical to -o and o.

       j      BSD job control format.

       -j     Jobs format.

       l      Display BSD long format.

       -l     Long format.  The -y option is often useful with this.

       -M     Add a column of security data.  Identical to Z (for SELinux).

       O format
              is preloaded o (overloaded).  The BSD O option can act like  -O  (user-defined  output
              format  with  some  common  fields  predefined)  or can be used to specify sort order.
              Heuristics are used to determine the behavior of this  option.   To  ensure  that  the
              desired behavior is obtained (sorting or formatting), specify the option in some other
              way  (e.g.   with -O or --sort).  When used as a formatting option, it is identical to
              -O, with the BSD personality.

       -O format
              Like -o, but preloaded with some default columns.  Identical  to  -o pid,format,state,
              tname,time,command or -o pid,format,tname,time,cmd, see -o below.

       o format
              Specify user-defined format.  Identical to -o and --format.

       -o format
              User-defined  format.  format 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
              recognized  keywords  are  described  in the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section below.
              Headers may be renamed (ps -o pid,ruser=RealUser -o comm=Command) as desired.  If  all
              column  headers  are  empty  (ps  -o  pid=  -o comm=) then the header line will not be
              output.  Column width will increase as needed for wide headers; this may  be  used  to
              widen  up columns such as WCHAN (ps -o pid,wchan=WIDE-WCHAN-COLUMN -o comm).  Explicit
              width control (ps opid,wchan:42,cmd) is offered too.  The behavior  of  ps  -o  pid=X,
              comm=Y  varies  with  personality;  output  may  be one column named "X,comm=Y" or two
              columns named "X" and "Y".  Use multiple -o options when in doubt.  Use the  PS_FORMAT
              environment  variable  to  specify a default as desired; DefSysV and DefBSD are macros
              that may be used to choose the default UNIX or BSD columns.

       -P     Add a column showing psr.

       s      Display signal format.

       u      Display user-oriented format.

       v      Display virtual memory format.

       X      Register format.

       -y     Do not show flags; show rss in place of addr.  This option can only be used with -l.

       Z      Add a column of security data.  Identical to -M (for SELinux).

OUTPUT MODIFIERS
       c      Show the true command name.  This is derived from the name  of  the  executable  file,
              rather  than from the argv value.  Command arguments and any modifications to them are
              thus not shown.  This option effectively turns the args format keyword into  the  comm
              format  keyword; it is useful with the -f format option and with the various BSD-style
              format options, which all normally display the command arguments.  See the -f  option,
              the format keyword args, and the format keyword comm.

       --cols n
              Set screen width.

       --columns n
              Set screen width.

       --cumulative
              Include some dead child process data (as a sum with the parent).

       -D format
              Set  the  date  format  of  the  lstart  field  to  format.  This  format is parsed by
              strftime(3) and should be a maximum of 24 characters to not mis-align columns.

       --date-format format
              Identical to -D.

       e      Show the environment after the command.

       f      ASCII art process hierarchy (forest).

       --forest
              ASCII art process tree.

       h      No header.  (or, one header per screen in the  BSD  personality).   The  h  option  is
              problematic.   Standard  BSD  ps  uses  this  option to print a header on each page of
              output, but older Linux ps uses this option  to  totally  disable  the  header.   This
              version  of  ps  follows  the  Linux  usage  of not printing the header unless the BSD
              personality has been selected, in which case it  prints  a  header  on  each  page  of
              output.  Regardless of the current personality, you can use the long options --headers
              and  --no-headers  to  enable  printing headers each page or disable headers entirely,
              respectively.

       -H     Show process hierarchy (forest).

       --headers
              Repeat header lines, one per page of output.

       k spec Specify  sorting  order.   Sorting  syntax  is  [+|-]key[,[+|-]key[,...]].   Choose  a
              multi-letter  key  from  the  STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section.  The "+" is optional
              since default direction is increasing numerical or lexicographic order.  Identical  to
              --sort.

                      Examples:
                      ps jaxkuid,-ppid,+pid
                      ps axk comm o comm,args
                      ps kstart_time -ef

       --lines n
              Set screen height.

       n      Numeric output for WCHAN and USER (including all types of UID and GID).

       --no-headers
              Print no header line at all.  --no-heading is an alias for this option.

       O order
              Sorting  order  (overloaded).   The  BSD O option can act like -O (user-defined output
              format with some common fields predefined) or can  be  used  to  specify  sort  order.
              Heuristics  are  used  to  determine  the behavior of this option.  To ensure that the
              desired behavior is obtained (sorting or formatting), specify the option in some other
              way (e.g.  with -O or --sort).

              For sorting, obsolete BSD O option syntax is O[+|-]k1[,[+|-]k2[,...]].  It orders  the
              processes  listing  according  to  the  multilevel  sort  specified by the sequence of
              one-letter short keys k1,k2, ... described in the OBSOLETE SORT  KEYS  section  below.
              The "+" is currently optional, merely re-iterating the default direction on a key, but
              may  help  to distinguish an O sort from an O format.  The "-" reverses direction only
              on the key it precedes.

       --rows n
              Set screen height.

       S      Sum up some information, such as CPU usage,  from  dead  child  processes  into  their
              parent.  This is useful for examining a system where a parent process repeatedly forks
              off short-lived children to do work.

       --sort spec
              Specify  sorting  order.   Sorting  syntax  is  [+|-]key[,[+|-]key[,...]].   Choose  a
              multi-letter key from the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section.   The  "+"  is  optional
              since  default direction is increasing numerical or lexicographic order.  Identical to
              k.  For example: ps jax --sort=uid,-ppid,+pid

       --signames
              Show signal masks using abbreviated signal names and  expands  the  collumn.   If  the
              column  width  cannot  show all signals, the column will end with a plus "+".  Columns
              with only a hyphen have no signals.

       w      Wide output.  Use this option twice for unlimited width.

       -w     Wide output.  Use this option twice for unlimited width.

       --width n
              Set screen width.

THREAD DISPLAY
       H      Show threads as if they were processes.

       -L     Show threads, possibly with LWP and NLWP columns.

       m      Show threads after processes.

       -m     Show threads after processes.

       -T     Show threads, possibly with SPID column.

OTHER INFORMATION
       --help section
              Print a help message.  The section argument  can  be  one  of  simple,  list,  output,
              threads, misc, or all.  The argument can be shortened to one of the underlined letters
              as in: s|l|o|t|m|a.

       --info Print debugging info.

       L      List all format specifiers.

       V      Print the procps-ng version.

       -V     Print the procps-ng version.

       --version
              Print the procps-ng version.

NOTES
       This ps works by reading the virtual files in /proc.  This ps does not need to be setuid kmem
       or have any privileges to run.  Do not give this ps any special permissions.

       CPU  usage  is  currently expressed as the percentage of time spent running during the entire
       lifetime of a process.  This is not ideal, and it does not conform to the standards  that  ps
       otherwise conforms to.  CPU usage is unlikely to add up to exactly 100%.

       The SIZE and RSS fields don't count some parts of a process including the page tables, kernel
       stack, struct thread_info, and struct task_struct.  This is usually at least 20 KiB of memory
       that is always resident.  SIZE is the virtual size of the process (code+data+stack).

       Processes marked <defunct> are dead processes (so-called "zombies") that remain because their
       parent  has not destroyed them properly.  These processes will be destroyed by init(8) if the
       parent process exits.

       If the length of the username is greater than the width of the display column,  the  username
       will be truncated.  See the -o and -O formatting options to customize length.

       Commands  options  such  as ps -aux are not recommended as it is a confusion of two different
       standards.  According to the POSIX and UNIX standards, the above command asks to display  all
       processes with a TTY (generally the commands users are running) plus all processes owned by a
       user named x.  If that user doesn't exist, then ps will assume you really meant "ps aux".

PROCESS FLAGS
       The sum of these values is displayed in the "F" column, which is provided by the flags output
       specifier:

               1    forked but didn't exec
               4    used super-user privileges

PROCESS STATE CODES
       Here  are the different values that the s, stat and state output specifiers (header "STAT" or
       "S") will display to describe the state of a process:

               D    uninterruptible sleep (usually IO)
               I    Idle kernel thread
               R    running or runnable (on run queue)
               S    interruptible sleep (waiting for an event to complete)
               T    stopped by job control signal
               t    stopped by debugger during the tracing
               W    paging (not valid since the 2.6.xx kernel)
               X    dead (should never be seen)
               Z    defunct ("zombie") process, terminated but not reaped by its parent

       For BSD formats and when the stat keyword is used, additional characters may be displayed:

               <    high-priority (not nice to other users)
               N    low-priority (nice to other users)
               L    has pages locked into memory (for real-time and custom IO)
               s    is a session leader
               l    is multi-threaded (using CLONE_THREAD, like NPTL pthreads do)
               +    is in the foreground process group

OBSOLETE SORT KEYS
       These keys are used by the BSD O option (when it is used for sorting).  The GNU --sort option
       doesn't use these keys, but the specifiers described below in the STANDARD FORMAT  SPECIFIERS
       section.   Note  that  the values used in sorting are the internal values ps uses and not the
       "cooked" values used in some of the output format fields (e.g.  sorting on tty will sort into
       device number, not according to the terminal  name  displayed).   Pipe  ps  output  into  the
       sort(1) command if you want to sort the cooked values.
       KEY   LONG         DESCRIPTION
       c     cmd          simple name of executable
       C     pcpu         cpu utilization
       f     flags        flags as in long format F field
       g     pgrp         process group ID
       G     tpgid        controlling tty process group ID
       j     cutime       cumulative user time
       J     cstime       cumulative system time
       k     utime        user time
       m     min_flt      number of minor page faults
       M     maj_flt      number of major page faults
       n     cmin_flt     cumulative minor page faults
       N     cmaj_flt     cumulative major page faults
       o     session      session ID
       p     pid          process ID
       P     ppid         parent process ID
       r     rss          resident set size
       R     resident     resident pages
       s     size         memory size in kilobytes
       S     share        amount of shared pages
       t     tty          the device number of the controlling tty
       T     start_time   time process was started
       U     uid          user ID number
       u     user         user name
       v     vsize        total VM size in KiB
       y     priority     kernel scheduling priority

AIX FORMAT DESCRIPTORS
       This  ps  supports  AIX  format descriptors, which work somewhat like the formatting codes of
       printf(1) and printf(3).  For example, the normal default output can be produced  with  this:
       ps -eo "%p %y %x %c".  The NORMAL codes are described in the next section.
       CODE   NORMAL   HEADER
       %C     pcpu     %CPU
       %G     group    GROUP
       %P     ppid     PPID
       %U     user     USER
       %a     args     COMMAND
       %c     comm     COMMAND
       %g     rgroup   RGROUP
       %n     nice     NI
       %p     pid      PID
       %r     pgid     PGID
       %t     etime    ELAPSED
       %u     ruser    RUSER
       %x     time     TIME
       %y     tty      TTY
       %z     vsz      VSZ

STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS
       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 with the GNU-style --sort option.

       For example: ps -eo pid,user,args --sort user

       This version of ps tries to recognize most of the keywords used in other  implementations  of
       ps.

       The  following  user-defined  format specifiers may contain spaces: args, cmd, comm, command,
       fname, ucmd, ucomm, lstart, bsdstart, start.

       Some keywords may not be available for sorting.

       CODE        HEADER    DESCRIPTION

       %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.  It will  not  add
                             up to 100% unless you are lucky.  (alias pcpu).

       %mem        %MEM      ratio of the process's resident set size  to the physical memory on the
                             machine, expressed as a percentage.  (alias pmem).

       ag_id       AGID      The  autogroup  identifier  associated with a process which operates in
                             conjunction with the  CFS  scheduler  to  improve  interactive  desktop
                             performance.

       ag_nice     AGNI      The  autogroup  nice value which affects scheduling of all processes in
                             that group.

       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, ps will instead  print  the  executable
                             name  in  brackets.   (alias  cmd,  command).  See also the comm format
                             keyword, the -f option, and the c option.
                             When specified last, this  column  will  extend  to  the  edge  of  the
                             display.   If  ps  can  not  determine display width, as when output is
                             redirected (piped) into a file or another command, the output width  is
                             undefined  (it  may  be 80, unlimited, determined by the TERM variable,
                             and so on).  The COLUMNS environment variable or --cols option  may  be
                             used  to  exactly determine the width in this case.  The w or -w option
                             may be also be used to adjust width.

       blocked     BLOCKED   mask of the blocked signals, see signal(7).  According to the width  of
                             the  field,  a  32  or  64-bit mask in hexadecimal format is displayed,
                             unless the --signames option is used.  (alias sig_block, sigmask).

       bsdstart    START     time the command started.  If the process  was  started  less  than  24
                             hours  ago,  the output format is " HH:MM", else it is " Mmm:SS" (where
                             Mmm   is   the   three   letters   of    the    month).     See    also
                             lstart, start, start_time, and stime.

       bsdtime     TIME      accumulated  cpu  time,  user  + system.  The display format is usually
                             "MMM:SS", but can be shifted to the right if the process used more than
                             999 minutes of cpu time.

       c           C         processor utilization. Currently, this is  the  integer  value  of  the
                             percent usage over the lifetime of the process.  (see %cpu).

       caught      CAUGHT    mask  of  the caught signals, see signal(7).  According to the width of
                             the field, a 32 or 64 bits mask in  hexadecimal  format  is  displayed,
                             unless the --signames option is used.  (alias sig_catch, sigcatch).

       cgname      CGNAME    display name of control groups to which the process belongs.

       cgroup      CGROUP    display control groups to which the process belongs.

       cgroupns    CGROUPNS  Unique  inode  number  describing the namespace the process belongs to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       class       CLS       scheduling  class  of  the  process.   (alias  policy,  cls).   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

       cls         CLS       scheduling  class  of  the  process.   (alias  policy,  cls).   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

       cmd         CMD       see args.  (alias args, command).

       comm        COMMAND   command name (only the executable name).  The output in this column may
                             contain spaces.   (alias  ucmd,  ucomm).   See  also  the  args  format
                             keyword, the -f option, and the c option.
                             When  specified  last,  this  column  will  extend  to  the edge of the
                             display.  If ps can not determine display  width,  as  when  output  is
                             redirected  (piped) into a file or another command, the output width is
                             undefined (it may be 80, unlimited, determined by  the  TERM  variable,
                             and  so  on).  The COLUMNS environment variable or --cols option may be
                             used to exactly determine the width in this case.  The  w or -w  option
                             may be also be used to adjust width.

       command     COMMAND   See args.  (alias args, command).

       cp          CP        per-mill (tenths of a percent) CPU usage.  (see %cpu).

       cputime     TIME      cumulative CPU time, "[DD-]hh:mm:ss" format.  (alias time).

       cputimes    TIME      cumulative CPU time in seconds (alias times).

       cuc         %CUC      The  CPU  utilization  of  a  process,  including  dead children, in an
                             extended "##.###" format.  (see also %cpu, c, cp, cuu, pcpu).

       cuu         %CUU      The CPU utilization of a process in an extended "##.###" format.   (see
                             also %cpu, c, cp, cuc, pcpu).

       drs         DRS       data  resident  set  size,  the  amount of private memory reserved by a
                             process.  It is also known as DATA. Such memory may not yet  be  mapped
                             to rss but will always be included included in the vsz amount.


       egid        EGID      effective  group ID number of the process as a decimal integer.  (alias
                             gid).

       egroup      EGROUP    effective group ID of the process.  This will be the textual group  ID,
                             if  it  can  be  obtained  and  the  field  width permits, or a decimal
                             representation otherwise.  (alias group).

       eip         EIP       instruction pointer. As of kernel 4.9.xx will be zeroed out unless task
                             is exiting or being core dumped.

       esp         ESP       stack pointer. As of kernel 4.9.xx will be zeroed out  unless  task  is
                             exiting or being core dumped.

       etime       ELAPSED   elapsed   time   since   the   process   was   started,   in  the  form
                             [[DD-]hh:]mm:ss.

       etimes      ELAPSED   elapsed time since the process was started, in seconds.

       euid        EUID      effective user ID (alias uid).

       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.   The  n  option  can  be  used   to   force   the   decimal
                             representation.  (alias uname, user).

       exe         EXE       path  to the executable. Useful if path cannot be printed via cmd, comm
                             or args format options.

       f           F         flags associated with the  process,  see  the  PROCESS  FLAGS  section.
                             (alias flag, flags).

       fgid        FGID      filesystem access group ID.  (alias fsgid).

       fgroup      FGROUP    filesystem  access  group ID.  This will be the textual group ID, if it
                             can  be  obtained  and  the  field  width   permits,   or   a   decimal
                             representation otherwise.  (alias fsgroup).

       flag        F         see f.  (alias f, flags).

       flags       F         see f.  (alias f, flag).

       fname       COMMAND   first  8  bytes of the base name of the process's executable file.  The
                             output in this column may contain spaces.

       fuid        FUID      filesystem access user ID.  (alias fsuid).

       fuser       FUSER     filesystem access user ID.  This will be the textual user ID, if it can
                             be obtained and the field width permits, or  a  decimal  representation
                             otherwise.

       gid         GID       see egid.  (alias egid).

       group       GROUP     see egroup.  (alias egroup).

       ignored     IGNORED   mask  of the ignored signals, see signal(7).  According to the width of
                             the field, a 32 or 64 bits mask in  hexadecimal  format  is  displayed,
                             unless the --signames option is used.  (alias sig_ignore, sigignore).

       ipcns       IPCNS     Unique  inode  number  describing the namespace the process belongs to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       label       LABEL     security label, most commonly used for SELinux context data.   This  is
                             for  the  Mandatory  Access  Control  ("MAC")  found  on  high-security
                             systems.

       lstart      STARTED   time the command started. This will be in the form  "DDD  mmm  HH:MM:SS
                             YYY" unless changed by the -D option.

       lsession    SESSION   displays  the login session identifier of a process, if systemd support
                             has been included.

       luid        LUID      displays Login ID associated with a process.

       lwp         LWP       light weight process (thread) ID  of  the  dispatchable  entity  (alias
                             spid, tid).  See tid for additional information.

       lxc         LXC       The  name  of  the  lxc container within which a task is running.  If a
                             process is not running inside a container, a dash ('-') will be shown.

       machine     MACHINE   displays the machine name for processes assigned to VM or container, if
                             systemd support has been included.

       maj_flt     MAJFLT    The number of major page faults that have occurred with this process.

       min_flt     MINFLT    The number of minor page faults that have occurred with this process.

       mntns       MNTNS     Unique inode number describing the namespace the  process  belongs  to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       netns       NETNS     Unique  inode  number  describing the namespace the process belongs to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       ni          NI        nice value. This ranges from 19 (nicest) to -20 (not nice  to  others),
                             see nice(1).  (alias nice).

       nice        NI        see ni.(alias ni).

       nlwp        NLWP      number of lwps (threads) in the process.  (alias thcount).

       numa        NUMA      The  node associated with the most recently used processor.  A -1 means
                             that NUMA information is unavailable.

       nwchan      WCHAN     address of the kernel function where the process is sleeping (use wchan
                             if you want the kernel function name).

       oom         OOM       Out of Memory Score. The value, ranging from 0 to +1000, used to select
                             task(s) to kill when memory is exhausted.

       oomadj      OOMADJ    Out of Memory Adjustment Factor. The value is added to the current  out
                             of memory score which is then used to determine which task to kill when
                             memory is exhausted.

       ouid        OWNER     displays  the  Unix  user  identifier  of the owner of the session of a
                             process, if systemd support has been included.

       pcpu        %CPU      see %cpu.  (alias %cpu).

       pending     PENDING   mask of the pending signals. See signal(7).   Signals  pending  on  the
                             process  are  distinct from signals pending on individual threads.  Use
                             the m option or the -m option to see both.  According to the  width  of
                             the  field,  a  32  or 64 bits mask in hexadecimal format is displayed,
                             unless the --signames option is used.  (alias sig).

       pgid        PGID      process group ID or, equivalently, the process ID of the process  group
                             leader.  (alias pgrp).

       pgrp        PGRP      see pgid.  (alias pgid).

       pid         PID       a number representing the process ID (alias tgid).

       pidns       PIDNS     Unique  inode  number  describing the namespace the process belongs to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       pmem        %MEM      see %mem.  (alias %mem).

       policy      POL       scheduling class of the process.  (alias class, cls).  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

       ppid        PPID      parent process ID.

       pri         PRI       priority of the process.  Higher number means higher priority.

       psr         PSR       processor that process last executed on.

       pss         PSS       Proportional  share  size, the non-swapped physical memory, with shared
                             memory proportionally accounted to all tasks mapping it.

       rbytes      RBYTES    Number of bytes which this process really did cause to be fetched  from
                             the storage layer.

       rchars      RCHARS    Number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage.

       rgid        RGID      real group ID.

       rgroup      RGROUP    real  group  name.   This  will  be  the textual group ID, if it can be
                             obtained and the field  width  permits,  or  a  decimal  representation
                             otherwise.

       rops        ROPS      Number of read I/O operations—that is, system calls such as read(2) and
                             pread(2).

       rss         RSS       resident set size, the non-swapped physical memory that a task has used
                             (in kilobytes).  (alias rssize, rsz).

       rssize      RSS       see rss.  (alias rss, rsz).

       rsz         RSZ       see rss.  (alias rss, rssize).

       rtprio      RTPRIO    realtime priority.

       ruid        RUID      real user ID.

       ruser       RUSER     real  user ID.  This will be the textual user ID, if it can be obtained
                             and the field width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.

       s           S         minimal state display (one character).  See section PROCESS STATE CODES
                             for the different  values.   See  also  stat  if  you  want  additional
                             information displayed.  (alias state).

       sched       SCH       scheduling   policy   of   the   process.    The  policies  SCHED_OTHER
                             (SCHED_NORMAL),   SCHED_FIFO,   SCHED_RR,    SCHED_BATCH,    SCHED_ISO,
                             SCHED_IDLE and SCHED_DEADLINE are respectively displayed as 0, 1, 2, 3,
                             4, 5 and 6.

       seat        SEAT      displays  the  identifier associated with all hardware devices assigned
                             to a specific workplace, if systemd support has been included.

       sess        SESS      session ID or, equivalently, the process  ID  of  the  session  leader.
                             (alias session, sid).

       sgi_p       P         processor  that the process is currently executing on.  Displays "*" if
                             the process is not currently running or runnable.

       sgid        SGID      saved group ID.  (alias svgid).

       sgroup      SGROUP    saved group name.  This will be the textual group  ID,  if  it  can  be
                             obtained  and  the  field  width  permits,  or a decimal representation
                             otherwise.

       sid         SID       see sess.  (alias sess, session).

       sig         PENDING   see pending.  (alias pending, sig_pend).

       sigcatch    CAUGHT    see caught.  (alias caught, sig_catch).

       sigignore   IGNORED   see ignored.  (alias ignored, sig_ignore).

       sigmask     BLOCKED   see blocked.  (alias blocked, sig_block).

       size        SIZE      approximate amount of swap space that would be required if the  process
                             were  to dirty all writable pages and then be swapped out.  This number
                             is very rough!

       slice       SLICE     displays the slice unit which a process belongs to, if systemd  support
                             has been included.

       spid        SPID      see lwp.  (alias lwp, tid).

       stackp      STACKP    address of the bottom (start) of stack for the process.

       start       STARTED   time  the  command  started.   If  the process was started less than 24
                             hours ago, the output format  is  "HH:MM:SS",  else  it  is  "  Mmm dd"
                             (where  Mmm  is  a three-letter month name).  See also bsdstart, start,
                             start_time, and stime.

       start_time  START     starting time or date of the process.  Only the year will be  displayed
                             if the process was not started the same year ps was invoked, or "MmmDD"
                             if  it  was  not  started the same day, or "HH:MM" otherwise.  See also
                             bsdstart, start, lstart, and stime.

       stat        STAT      multi-character process state.  See section PROCESS STATE CODES for the
                             different values meaning.  See also s and state if you  just  want  the
                             first character displayed.

       state       S         see s. (alias s).

       stime       STIME     see start_time. (alias start_time).

       suid        SUID      saved user ID.  (alias svuid).

       supgid      SUPGID    group ids of supplementary groups, if any.  See getgroups(2).

       supgrp      SUPGRP    group names of supplementary groups, if any.  See getgroups(2).

       suser       SUSER     saved  user  name.   This  will  be  the  textual user ID, if it can be
                             obtained and the field  width  permits,  or  a  decimal  representation
                             otherwise.  (alias svuser).

       svgid       SVGID     see sgid.  (alias sgid).

       svuid       SVUID     see suid.  (alias suid).

       sz          SZ        size in physical pages of the core image of the process.  This includes
                             text,  data,  and stack space.  Device mappings are currently excluded;
                             this is subject to change.  See vsz and rss.

       tgid        TGID      a number representing the thread group to which a task  belongs  (alias
                             pid).  It is the process ID of the thread group leader.

       thcount     THCNT     see  nlwp.   (alias  nlwp).   number  of  kernel  threads  owned by the
                             process.

       tid         TID       the unique number representing a dispatchable entity (alias spid, tid).
                             This value may also appear as: a process ID (pid); a process  group  ID
                             (pgrp);  a  session  ID for the session leader (sid); a thread group ID
                             for the thread group leader (tgid); and a tty process group ID for  the
                             process group leader (tpgid).

       time        TIME      cumulative CPU time, "[DD-]HH:MM:SS" format.  (alias cputime).

       timens      TIMENS    Unique  inode  number  describing the namespace the process belongs to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       times       TIME      cumulative CPU time in seconds (alias cputimes).

       tname       TTY       controlling tty (terminal).  (alias tt, tty).

       tpgid       TPGID     ID of the foreground process group  on  the  tty  (terminal)  that  the
                             process  is  connected  to,  or -1 if the process is not connected to a
                             tty.

       trs         TRS       text resident set size,  the  amount  of  physical  memory  devoted  to
                             executable code.

       tt          TT        controlling tty (terminal).  (alias tname, tty).

       tty         TT        controlling tty (terminal).  (alias tname, tt).

       ucmd        CMD       see comm.  (alias comm, ucomm).

       ucomm       COMMAND   see comm.  (alias comm, ucmd).

       uid         UID       see euid.  (alias euid).

       uname       USER      see euser.  (alias euser, user).

       unit        UNIT      displays  unit  which a process belongs to, if systemd support has been
                             included.

       user        USER      see euser.  (alias euser, uname).

       userns      USERNS    Unique inode number describing the namespace the  process  belongs  to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       uss         USS       Unique  set  size, the non-swapped physical memory, which is not shared
                             with an another task.

       utsns       UTSNS     Unique inode number describing the namespace the  process  belongs  to.
                             See namespaces(7).

       uunit       UUNIT     displays  user  unit which a process belongs to, if systemd support has
                             been included.

       vsize       VSZ       see vsz.  (alias vsz).

       vsz         VSZ       virtual memory size of the process in KiB  (1024-byte  units).   Device
                             mappings  are  currently  excluded;  this is subject to change.  (alias
                             vsize).

       wbytes      WBYTES    Number of bytes which this process caused to be  sent  to  the  storage
                             layer.

       wcbytes     WCBYTES   Number of cancelled write bytes.

       wchan       WCHAN     name of the kernel function in which the process is sleeping.

       wchars      WCHARS    Number  of  bytes  which  this  task  has  caused, or shall cause to be
                             written to disk.

       wops        WOPS      Number of write I/O operations—that is, system calls such  as  write(2)
                             and pwrite(2).


ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables could affect ps:

       COLUMNS
          Override default display width.

       LINES
          Override default display height.

       PS_PERSONALITY
          Set to one of posix, old, linux, bsd, sun, digital... (see section PERSONALITY below).

       CMD_ENV
          Set to one of posix, old, linux, bsd, sun, digital... (see section PERSONALITY below).

       I_WANT_A_BROKEN_PS
          Force obsolete command line interpretation.

       LC_TIME
          Date format.

       LIBPROC_HIDE_KERNEL
          Set  this  to any value to hide kernel threads normally displayed with the -e option. This
          is equivalent to selecting --ppid 2 -p 2 --deselect instead. Also works in BSD mode.

       PS_COLORS
          Not currently supported.

       PS_FORMAT
          Default output format override. You may set this to a format string of the type  used  for
          the -o option.  The DefSysV and DefBSD values are particularly useful.

       POSIXLY_CORRECT
          Don't find excuses to ignore bad "features".

       POSIX2
          When set to "on", acts as POSIXLY_CORRECT.

       UNIX95
          Don't find excuses to ignore bad "features".

       _XPG
          Cancel CMD_ENV=irix non-standard behavior.

       In  general,  it  is  a  bad  idea  to  set these variables.  The one exception is CMD_ENV or
       PS_PERSONALITY, which could be set to Linux for normal systems.   Without  that  setting,  ps
       follows the useless and bad parts of the Unix98 standard.

PERSONALITY
       390        like the OS/390 OpenEdition ps
       aix        like AIX ps
       bsd        like FreeBSD ps (totally non-standard)
       compaq     like Digital Unix ps
       debian     like the old Debian ps
       digital    like Tru64 (was Digital Unix, was OSF/1) ps
       gnu        like the old Debian ps
       hp         like HP-UX ps
       hpux       like HP-UX ps
       irix       like Irix ps
       linux      ***** recommended *****
       old        like the original Linux ps (totally non-standard)
       os390      like OS/390 Open Edition ps
       posix      standard
       s390       like OS/390 Open Edition ps
       sco        like SCO ps
       sgi        like Irix ps
       solaris2   like Solaris 2+ (SunOS 5) ps
       sunos4     like SunOS 4 (Solaris 1) ps (totally non-standard)
       svr4       standard
       sysv       standard
       tru64      like Tru64 (was Digital Unix, was OSF/1) ps
       unix       standard
       unix95     standard
       unix98     standard

BUGS
       The  fields  bsdstart  and  start  will  only show the abbreviated month name in English. The
       fields lstart and stime will show the abbreviated month name in the configured locale but may
       exceed the column width due to the different lengths for  abbreviated  month  and  day  names
       across languages.

SEE ALSO
       pgrep(1), pstree(1), top(1), strftime(3), proc(5).

STANDARDS
       This ps conforms to:

       1   Version 2 of the Single Unix Specification
       2   The Open Group Technical Standard Base Specifications, Issue 6
       3   IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition
       4   X/Open System Interfaces Extension [UP XSI]
       5   ISO/IEC 9945:2003

AUTHOR
       ps  was originally written by ]8;;mailto:lankeste AT fwi.nl\Branko Lankester]8;;\.  ]8;;mailto:johnsonm AT redhat.com\Michael K. Johnson]8;;\ re-wrote it significantly
       to use the proc filesystem, changing a few things in the process.  ]8;;mailto:mjshield AT nyx.edu\Michael Shields]8;;\ added  the
       pid-list  feature.   ]8;;mailto:cblake AT bbn.com\Charles Blake]8;;\  added  multi-level sorting, the dirent-style library, the
       device name-to-number mmaped database, the approximate binary search directly on  System.map,
       and  many  code  and  documentation  cleanups.   David  Mossberger-Tang wrote the generic BFD
       support for psupdate.  ]8;;mailto:albert AT users.net\Albert Cahalan]8;;\ rewrote ps for full Unix98 and BSD support, along  with
       some ugly hacks for obsolete and foreign syntax.

       Please send bug reports to ]8;;mailto:procps AT freelists.org\procps AT freelists.org]8;;\.  No subscription is required or suggested.

procps-ng                                    2023-08-19                                        PS(1)
ps(1)
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION EXAMPLES SIMPLE PROCESS SELECTION
-A Select all processes. Identical to -e. -a Select all processes except both session leaders (see getsid(2)) and processes not -d Select all processes except session leaders. --deselect -e Select all processes. Identical to -A. -N Select all processes except those that fulfill the specified conditions (negates the
PROCESS SELECTION BY LIST
-C cmdlist -G grplist -g grplist -p pidlist -q pidlist -s sesslist -t ttylist -U userlist -u userlist
OUTPUT FORMAT CONTROL
-c Show different scheduler information for the -l option. --context -f Do full-format listing. This option can be combined with many other UNIX-style -F Extra full format. See the -f option, which -F implies. -j Jobs format. -l Long format. The -y option is often useful with this. -M Add a column of security data. Identical to Z (for SELinux). -O format -o format -P Add a column showing psr. -y Do not show flags; show rss in place of addr. This option can only be used with -l.
OUTPUT MODIFIERS
--cumulative -D format --forest -H Show process hierarchy (forest). --headers --no-headers --signames -w Wide output. Use this option twice for unlimited width.
THREAD DISPLAY
-L Show threads, possibly with LWP and NLWP columns. -m Show threads after processes. -T Show threads, possibly with SPID column.
OTHER INFORMATION
-V Print the procps-ng version. --version
NOTES PROCESS FLAGS PROCESS STATE CODES OBSOLETE SORT KEYS AIX FORMAT DESCRIPTORS STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
_XPG
PERSONALITY BUGS SEE ALSO STANDARDS AUTHOR

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