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.

       Note that ps -aux is distinct from ps aux.  The POSIX and UNIX standards
       require  that  ps -aux  print  all processes owned by a user named x, as
       well as printing all processes that would be selected by the -a  option.
       If the user named x does not exist, this ps may interpret the command as
       ps aux instead and print a warning.  This behavior is intended to aid in
       transitioning old scripts and habits.  It is fragile, subject to change,
       and thus should not be relied upon.

       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