PWB1/usr/man/man1/ps.1

.th PS I 5/31/77
.sh NAME
ps \*- process status
.sh SYNOPSIS
.bd ps
[
.bd aklxt
]
[ namelist ]
.sh DESCRIPTION
.it Ps
prints certain indicia about active
processes.
The
.bd a
flag asks for information about all processes with terminals (ordinarily
only one's own processes are displayed);
.bd x
asks even about processes with no terminal;
.bd l
asks for a long listing.
The short listing contains the process ID, tty letter,
the cumulative execution time of the process and an
approximation to the command line.
If the
.bd k
flag is specified,
the file
.it /sys/sys/core
is used in place of
.it /dev/mem.
This is used for
postmortem system debugging.
If a second argument is given,
it is taken to be the file containing the system's namelist.
If the
.bd t
flag is used, the following character is taken to be
the specific tty for which information is to be printed.
.s3
The long listing is columnar and contains
.s3
.lp +15 10
F	Flags associated with the process.
01: in core;
02: system process;
04: locked in core (e.g. for physical I/O);
10: being swapped;
20: being traced by another process.
.s3
.lp +15 10
S	The state of the process.
0: nonexistent;
S: sleeping;
W: waiting;
R: running;
I: intermediate;
Z: terminated;
T: stopped.
.s3
.lp +15 10
UID	The user ID of the process owner.
.s3
.lp +15 10
PID	The process ID of the process; as in certain cults it is possible to kill a process
if you know its true name.
.s3
.lp +15 10
PPID	The process ID of the parent process.
.s3
.lp +15 10
CPU	Processor utilization for scheduling.
.s3
.lp +15 10
PRI	The priority of the
process; high numbers mean low priority.
.s3
.lp +15 10
NICE	Used in priority computation.
.s3
.lp +15 10
ADDR	The core address of the process if resident,
otherwise the disk address.
.s3
.lp +15 10
SZ	The size in blocks of the core image of the process.
.s3
.lp +15 10
WCHAN	The event for which the process is waiting or sleeping;
if blank, the process is running.
.s3
.lp +15 10
TTY	The controlling tty for the process.
.s3
.lp +15 10
TIME	The cumulative execution time for the process.
.s3
.lp +15 10
COMMAND	The command and its arguments.
.s3
.i0
.dt
.it Ps
makes an educated guess as to the file name
and arguments given when the process was created
by examining core memory or the swap area.
The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event
a process is entitled to destroy this information,
so the names cannot be counted on too much.
.sh FILES
/unix		system namelist
.br
/dev/mem	core memory
.br
/sys/sys/core	alternate core file
.br
/dev		searched to find swap device and tty names
.sh "SEE ALSO"
kill(I)