man > pstree(1)

PSTREE(1)                                   User Commands                                  PSTREE(1)

NAME
       pstree - display a tree of processes

SYNOPSIS
       pstree [-a, --arguments] [-c, --compact-not] [-C, --color attr] [-g, --show-pgids]
       [-h, --highlight-all, -H pid, --highlight-pid pid] [-l, --long] [-n, --numeric-sort]
       [-N, --ns-sort ns] [-p, --show-pids] [-s, --show-parents] [-S, --ns-changes] [-t, --thread-
       names] [-T, --hide-threads] [-u, --uid-changes] [-Z, --security-context]
       [-A, --ascii, -G, --vt100, -U, --unicode] [pid, user]
       pstree -V, --version

DESCRIPTION
       pstree shows running processes as a tree.  The tree is rooted at either pid or init if pid is
       omitted.   If  a  user name is specified, all process trees rooted at processes owned by that
       user are shown.

       pstree visually merges identical branches by putting them in square  brackets  and  prefixing
       them with the repetition count, e.g.

           init-+-getty
                |-getty
                |-getty
                `-getty

       becomes

           init---4*[getty]


       Child  threads of a process are found under the parent process and are shown with the process
       name in curly braces, e.g.

           icecast2---13*[{icecast2}]


       If pstree is called as pstree.x11 then it will prompt the user at the  end  of  the  line  to
       press  return and will not return until that has happened.  This is useful for when pstree is
       run in a xterminal.

       Certain kernel or mount parameters, such as the hidepid option for procfs, will hide informa‐
       tion for some processes. In these situations pstree will attempt to build  the  tree  without
       this information, showing process names as question marks.


OPTIONS
       -a     Show  command  line  arguments.  If the command line of a process is swapped out, that
              process is shown in parentheses.  -a implicitly disables compaction for processes  but
              not threads.

       -A     Use ASCII characters to draw the tree.

       -c     Disable compaction of identical subtrees.  By default, subtrees are compacted whenever
              possible.

       -C     Color the process name by given attribute. Currently pstree only accepts the value age
              which colors by process age.  Processes newer than 60 seconds are green, newer than an
              hour yellow and the remaining red.

       -g     Show  PGIDs.  Process Group IDs are shown as decimal numbers in parentheses after each
              process name.  If both PIDs and PGIDs are displayed then PIDs are shown first.

       -G     Use VT100 line drawing characters.

       -h     Highlight the current process and its ancestors.  This is  a  no-op  if  the  terminal
              doesn't  support  highlighting or if neither the current process nor any of its ances‐
              tors are in the subtree being shown.

       -H     Like -h, but highlight the specified process instead.  Unlike with  -h,  pstree  fails
              when using -H if highlighting is not available.

       -l     Display long lines.  By default, lines are truncated to either the COLUMNS environment
              variable  or  the display width.  If neither of these methods work, the default of 132
              columns is used.

       -n     Sort processes with the same parent by PID instead of by name.  (Numeric sort.)

       -N     Show individual trees for each namespace of the type specified.  The  available  types
              are:  ipc,  mnt,  net, pid, time, user, uts.  Regular users don't have access to other
              users' processes information, so the output will be limited.

       -p     Show PIDs.  PIDs are shown as decimal numbers in parentheses after each process  name.
              -p implicitly disables compaction.

       -s     Show parent processes of the specified process.

       -S     Show namespaces transitions.  Like -N, the output is limited when running as a regular
              user.

       -t     Show full names for threads when available.

       -T     Hide threads and only show processes.

       -u     Show  uid transitions.  Whenever the uid of a process differs from the uid of its par‐
              ent, the new uid is shown in parentheses after the process name.

       -U     Use UTF-8 (Unicode) line drawing characters.  Under Linux 1.1-54 and above, UTF-8 mode
              is entered on the console with echo -e ' 33%8' and left with echo -e ' 33%@'.

       -V     Display version information.

       -Z     Show the current security attributes of the process. For SELinux systems this will  be
              the security context.

FILES
       /proc  location of the proc file system

BUGS
       Some character sets may be incompatible with the VT100 characters.

SEE ALSO
       ps(1), top(1), proc(5).

psmisc                                       2021-06-21                                    PSTREE(1)