.TH PS 1 .SH NAME ps \- process status .SH SYNOPSIS \fBps \fR[\fR[\fB\-\fR]\fBalx\fR] .br .de FL .TP \\fB\\$1\\fR \\$2 .. .de EX .TP 20 \\fB\\$1\\fR # \\$2 .. .SH OPTIONS .FL "\-a" "Print all processes with controlling terminals" .FL "\-l" "Give long listing" .FL "\-x" "Include processes without a terminal" .SH EXAMPLES .EX "ps " "Show user's own processes in short format" .EX "ps \-axl" "Print all processes and tasks in long format" .EX "ps \axl" "Same -- the '\-' is optional" .SH DESCRIPTION .PP \fIPs\fR prints the status of active processes. Normally only the caller's own processes are listed in short format (the PID, TTY, TIME and CMD fields as explained below). The long listing contains: .PP .ta 0.5i 1.0i F Kernel flags: 001: free slot 002: no memory map 004: sending; 010: receiving 020: inform on pending signals 040: pending signals 100: being traced. .PP S State: R: runnable W: waiting (on a message) S: sleeping (i.e.,suspended on MM or FS) Z: zombie T: stopped .PP UID, PID, PPID, PGRP The user, process, parent process and process group ID's. .PP SZ Size of the process in kilobytes. .PP RECV Process/task on which a receiving process is waiting or sleeping. .PP TTY Controlling tty for the process. .PP TIME Process' cumulative (user + system) execution time. .PP CMD Command line arguments of the process. .PP .PP The files \fI/dev/{mem,kmem}\fR are used to read the system tables and command line arguments from. Terminal names in \fI/dev\fR are used to generate the mnemonic names in the TTY column, so \fIps\fR is independent of terminal naming conventions. .SH NOTES The '\-' option prefix is not required. For marginal compatibility with System V usage, the hidden option .B \-e means the same as .BR \-ax , and .B \-f is the same as .BR \-l . .\" edited by ASW 2004-12-14