Include only specified processes, which are given in a space-delimited list.

Include only specified session IDs, which are given in a space-delimited list.

As a, list all processes on a terminal. As -a, list all processes except session leaders and processes not associated with a terminal.

As -c, show different scheduler information with -l. As c, show the true command name.

Select by command name.

Set the output width (the number of columns to display).

Select all processes except session leaders.

Select all processes.

Include environment information after the command.

As -f, display full listing. As f or --forest, display "forest" family tree format, with ASCII art showing the relationships.

Set extra-full format; implies -f.

For -g, select by session leader if list contains numbers, or by group if it contains group names. For -G, select by the group IDs in list. --group selects by effective group and --Group selects by real group, where groups can be either group names or group IDs.

Suppress header. If you select a BSD personality by setting the environment variable PS_PERSONALITY to bsd, then h prints a header on each page.

Display "forest" family tree format, but without ASCII art.

Display threads as if they were processes.

Repeat headers on every output page.

Display help information and exit.

Print debugging information.

Jobs format. j prints more information than -j.

Specify sort order. Syntax for the specification is:

[+|-] key[,[+|-] key...] ]

The default direction is +, for increasing numerical or alphabetic order. See Format and sort specifiers for possible keys.

Produce a long listing. -l prints more information than l and is often used with -y.

Print list of field specifiers that can be used for output formatting or for sorting.

Show threads, possibly with LWP and NLWP columns.

Set the screen height to num lines. If --headers is also set, the headers repeat every num lines.

Show threads after processes.

Print user IDs and WCHAN numerically.

Specify the System.map file for ps to use as a namelist file. The map file must correspond to the Linux kernel—e.g., /boot/System.map-2.4.19.

Negate the selection, selecting all processes that do not meet the specified conditions.

As -o, o, or --format, specify user-defined format with a list of fields to display.

As -O, this option is like -o, but some common fields are predefined. As O, this option can be either the same as -O in specifying fields to display, or can specify single-letter fields for sorting. For sorting, each field specified as a key can optionally have a leading + (return to default sort direction on key) or - (reverse the default direction).

Select by parent process IDs.

Show only processes that are currently running.

Display signal format.

Include some dead child process data in parent total.

Display processes running on the specified terminals. t with no terminal list displays processes for the terminal associated with ps. Specify - to select processes not associated with any terminal.

Display all processes on this terminal. Like t with no argument.

Display threads, possibly with SPID column,

As u with no argument, display user-oriented output. As -u or --user, display by effective user ID (and also support names), showing results for users. With no argument, -u displays results for the current user.

As U, display processes by effective user ID. As -U or --User, display processes for users by real user ID (and also support names).

Display virtual memory format.

Display version information and then exit.

Wide format. Don't truncate long lines. Use twice to set an unlimited width.

Set screen width.

Display processes without an associated terminal.

Use old Linux i386 register format.

Do not show flags; show rss instead of addr. Requires -l.

Percent of CPU time used recently. (%CPU)

Percent of memory used. (%MEM)

The command the process is running with all its arguments. (CMD for cmd; otherwise COMMAND)

Mask, in hexadecimal, of blocked signals. (BLOCKED)

Command start time. (START)

Accumulated CPU time for user plus system. (TIME)

Integer value of %cpu. (C)

Mask, in hexadecimal, of caught signals. (CAUGHT)

Scheduling class. (POL for policy, otherwise CLS). Possible values are:

-

Unreported

?

Unknown value

FF

SCHED_FIFO (first in, first out)

RR

SCHED_RR (round robin)

TS

SCHED_OTHER (standard time-sharing)

Name of the command executable. (CMD for ucmd, otherwise COMMAND)

Per-mill CPU usage, where mill is 1000. Equivalent to %cpu with no decimal point. (CP)

Cumulative CPU time. (TIME)

Effective group ID number in decimal. (EGID or GID, respectively)

Effective group ID; as text value if it is available and if it fits, otherwise shown as decimal value. (EGROUP or GROUP, respectively)

Effective instruction pointer. (EIP)

Effective stack pointer. (ESP)

Elapsed time since the start of the process. (ELAPSED)

Effective user ID. (EUID or UID, respectively)

Effective username; as text value if it is available and if it fits, otherwise shown as decimal value (EUSER for euser; otherwise USER).

Process flags. Can be summed. (F) Possible values are:

1

Forked but didn't exec.

4

Used superuser privileges.

Filesystem access group ID. (FGID)

Filesystem access group ID; as text if available and if it fits, otherwise as a decimal number. (FGROUP)

First eight bytes of the executable's basename. (COMMAND)

Filesystem access user ID. (FUID)

Filesystem access user ID; as text if available and if it fits, otherwise as a decimal number. (FUSER)

Mask of ignored signals in hexadecimal format. (IGNORED)

Command start time. (LSTART)

Light-weight process, or thread, ID. (LWP, SPID, TID, respectively)

The nice value of the process. A higher number indicates less CPU time. (NI)

Number of LWPs, or threads, in the process. (NLWP or THCNT, respectively)

Address of kernel function where process is sleeping. See also wchan to get the function by name. (WCHAN)

Mask of pending signals. Use with the m or -m option to see both signals pending on the process and on individual threads. (PENDING)

Process group ID or ID of process group leader, which are equivalent. (PGID or PGRP, respectively)

Process ID. (PID)

Parent process ID. (PPID)

Process's scheduling priority. A higher number indicates lower priority. (PRI)

Current processor that the process is running on. (PSR)

Real group ID. (RGID)

Real group name; as text if available and it fits, otherwise as a decimal number. (RGROUP)

Resident set size (the amount of physical memory), in kilobytes. (RSZ for rsz; otherwise RSS)

Real-time priority. (RTPRIO)

Real user ID number. (RUID)

Real user ID; as text if available and it fits, otherwise as a decimal number. (RUSER)

A single-character state display. See stat for the possible characters or for a multicharacter display. (S)

Scheduling policy. Also see class. (SCH) Possible values are:

0

SCHED_OTHER

1

SCHED_FIFO

2

SCHED_RR

Session ID, or the process ID of the session leader, which is equivalent. (SID for sid; otherwise SESS)

Processor on which the process is currentlly running, or "*" if the process is not running. (P)

Saved group ID. (SGID or SVGID, respectively)

Saved group name; as text if available and it fits, otherwise as a decimal number.

Size of virtual image. Provides a rough estimate of the swapspace required to swap the process out. Note that sz uses the same column header, but has a different meaning. (SZ)

Address of the stack bottom (start of the stack). (STACKP)

Start time of the command. (STARTED)

Starting time or date of the process. (START)

Status. Multiple status characters can appear. See also s to display a single character. (STAT)

+

Part of foreground process group.

<

High priority (not "nice").

D

Asleep and not interruptible.

l

Multi-threaded.

L

Pages locked into memory.

N

Low priority ("nice").

R

Runnable.

s

Session leader.

S

Asleep.

T

Stopped.

W

No resident pages (second field).

Z

Zombie.

Saved user ID. (SUID or SVUID respectively)

Saved username; as text if it is available and it fits, otherwise as a decimal number. (SUSER or SVUSER respectively)

Physical page size of the core image of the process, including text, data and stack space. (SZ)

ID of the foreground process group on the associated terminal for the process, or -1 if not connected to a terminal. (TPGID)

Associated (controlling) terminal. (TTY for tname; otherwise TT)

User ID. (UID)

Virtual memory size, in kilobytes of the entire process. (VSZ)

Kernel function in which process is sleeping, or "-" if running, or "*" if multithreaded process and ps is not displaying threads. (WCHAN)