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Contents

CONTENTS

1. The ps command
1. Command Options
2. View All of Your System’s Processes
3. Viewing the Process Hierarchy
4. The aux shortcut
2. Next Steps
1. Use top as an Alternative to the ps Command
3. More Information
4. Your Feedback Is Important

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USING THE PS AUX COMMAND IN LINUX

Updated Friday, August 20, 2021, by James Turner
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The ps aux command is a tool to monitor processes running on your Linux system.
A process is associated with any program running on your system, and is used to
manage and monitor a program’s memory usage, processor time, and I/O resources.
Since the ps aux command displays an overview of all the processes that are
running, it is a great tool to understand and troubleshoot the health and state
of your Linux system. This guide provides an introduction to the ps aux command
with brief examples to help you interpret its output.

THE PS COMMAND

The ps command without any options displays information about processes that are
bound by the controlling terminal.

The command returns a similar output:

PID TTY TIME CMD
285 pts/2 00:00:00 zsh
334 pts/2 00:00:00 ps

The default output of the ps command contains four columns that provide the
following information:

* PID: The process ID is your system’s tracking number for the process. The PID
is useful when you need to use a command like kill or nice, which take a PID
as their input.

* TTY: The controlling terminal associated with the process. Processes that do
not originate from a controlling terminal and were initiated by the system at
boot are displayed with a question mark.

* TIME: The CPU usage of the process. Displays the amount of CPU time used by
the process. This value is not the run time of the process.

* CMD: The name of the command or executable that is running. The output only
includes the name of the command or executable and does not display any
options that were passed in.

COMMAND OPTIONS

The ps command accepts three different styles of options; UNIX, BSD, and GNU.
You can use a mix of each style, however, you may notice inconsistent behavior
across Linux distributions.

* When using UNIX-style options, your option(s) must be preceded by a dash (-)
and can be grouped together. For example, the -aux options in the ps -aux
command is preceded by a dash when using the UNIX style.

* When using BSD-style options with the ps command, you must exclude the dash
(-), however, you can group your options. For example, notice the ps aux
command’s options; aux is formatted in the BSD style.

* GNU-style options are preceded by two dashes (--), and are reserved for long
options. For example, the ps --quick-pid 10946 command uses the long option
--quick-pid to display running process information by a specific PID. In the
example, 10946 is the process PID.

VIEW ALL OF YOUR SYSTEM’S PROCESSES

By default, the ps command displays only the processes associated with your
current terminal session. However, you may want to view all the processes that
the current user owns, for example if you have multiple terminal sessions
running for the same user. In that case, issue the ps x command. Also, notice
that the command is using the BSD-style option.

The ps x command returns an additional column called sate information (STAT).
This column can display a large number of possible values depending on the
process it displays. For example, a lowercase s indicates that the process is a
session leader (i.e., the root process). A capital S means that the process is
in an interruptible sleep state, and is waiting for some event, like user input.
R means that the command is actively running. T means that the process has
stopped; like when you enter control-Z in the vi text editor. The + means it is
a foreground process.

Take a look at the following example and notice the different states for each
process displayed in the STAT column:

ps x

PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
285 pts/2 Ss 0:00 -zsh
343 pts/2 T 0:00 vi foo
351 pts/3 Ss+ 0:00 -zsh
439 pts/2 R+ 0:00 ps -x

VIEWING THE PROCESS HIERARCHY

The init process is the first process started by the Linux kernel when a system
boots. Every other process on your system is a child of the init process. You
can view this hierarchy using the ps command’s e and H options. The e option
causes ps to list all processes in the system, regardless of the owner or
controlling terminal. The H option formats the CMD column’s data to display the
parent-child relationship between processes.

ps -He

PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:00 init
227 ? 00:00:00 init
228 ? 00:00:00 init
229 pts/0 00:00:15 docker
240 ? 00:00:00 init <defunct>
247 ? 00:00:00 init
248 pts/1 00:00:10 docker-desktop-
283 ? 00:00:00 init
284 ? 00:00:00 init
285 pts/2 00:00:00 zsh
343 pts/2 00:00:00 vi
528 pts/2 00:00:00 ps
349 ? 00:00:00 init
350 ? 00:00:00 init
351 pts/3 00:00:00 zsh

Alternatively, you can get a prettier output with a few more columns by using
the ps -axjf command.

ps -axjf

PPID PID PGID SID TTY TPGID STAT UID TIME COMMAND
0 1 0 0 ? -1 Sl 0 0:00 /init
1 227 227 227 ? -1 Ss 0 0:00 /init
227 228 227 227 ? -1 S 0 0:00 \_ /init
228 229 229 229 pts/0 229 Ssl+ 1000 0:15 | \_ docker
227 240 227 227 ? -1 Z 0 0:00 \_ [init] <defunct>
227 247 227 227 ? -1 S 0 0:00 \_ /init
247 248 248 248 pts/1 248 Ssl+ 0 0:10 \_ /mnt/wsl/docker-desktop/docker-desktop-proxy
1 283 283 283 ? -1 Ss 0 0:00 /init
283 284 283 283 ? -1 S 0 0:00 \_ /init
284 285 285 285 pts/2 559 Ss 1000 0:00 \_ -zsh
285 343 343 285 pts/2 559 T 1000 0:00 \_ vi foo
285 559 559 285 pts/2 559 R+ 1000 0:00 \_ ps axjf
1 349 349 349 ? -1 Ss 0 0:00 /init
349 350 349 349 ? -1 S 0 0:00 \_ /init
350 351 351 351 pts/3 351 Ss+ 1000 0:00 \_ -zsh

The additional columns provide the following information:

* PPID: Displays the parent process ID. In the above example, the vi command
has a PPID of 285, which matches the PID of the Z shell process running above
it.

* SID: This column displays the session ID. The value is usually the same as
the PID of the process that started the chain.

* PGID: This ID shows the parent group process ID.

* TPGID: This is the terminal sessions ID with which the process is associated.
If there is no terminal that is associated, then -1 is displayed.

* UID: The user ID associated with the process is displayed in this column.

THE AUX SHORTCUT

Now that you understand the basics of the ps command, this section covers the
benefits to the ps aux command. The ps aux displays the most amount of
information a user usually needs to understand the current state of their
system’s running processes. Take a look at the following example:

ps aux

USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.0 892 572 ? Sl Nov28 0:00 /init
root 227 0.0 0.0 900 80 ? Ss Nov28 0:00 /init
root 228 0.0 0.0 900 88 ? S Nov28 0:00 /init
zaphod 229 0.0 0.1 749596 31000 pts/0 Ssl+ Nov28 0:15 docker
root 240 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Nov28 0:00 [init] <defunct>
root 247 0.0 0.0 900 88 ? S Nov28 0:00 /init
root 248 0.0 0.1 1758276 31408 pts/1 Ssl+ Nov28 0:10 /mnt/wsl/docker-desktop/docker-desktop-proxy
root 283 0.0 0.0 892 80 ? Ss Dec01 0:00 /init
root 284 0.0 0.0 892 80 ? R Dec01 0:00 /init
zaphod 285 0.0 0.0 11964 5764 pts/2 Ss Dec01 0:00 -zsh
zaphod 343 0.0 0.0 23764 9836 pts/2 T 17:44 0:00 vi foo
root 349 0.0 0.0 892 80 ? Ss 17:45 0:00 /init
root 350 0.0 0.0 892 80 ? S 17:45 0:00 /init
zaphod 351 0.0 0.0 11964 5764 pts/3 Ss+ 17:45 0:00 -zsh
zaphod 601 0.0 0.0 10612 3236 pts/2 R+ 18:24 0:00 ps aux

The ps aux command displays more useful information than other similar options.
For example, the UID column is replaced with a human-readable username column.
ps aux also displays statistics about your Linux system, like the percent of CPU
and memory that the process is using. The VSZ column displays amount of virtual
memory being consumed by the process. RSS is the actual physical wired-in memory
that is being used. The START column shows the date or time for when the process
was started. This is different from the CPU time reported by the TIME column.

NEXT STEPS

The ps command has many other available options. For example, ps allows you to
customize output columns so you can view your system’s data in a format you
prefer. You can filter based on the user, process name, or terminal. You can
tell ps to print its output more verbosely and to ignore your screen width. You
can spend more time learning what else ps can accomplish by reading its man-page
on your Linux system.

man ps

USE TOP AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE PS COMMAND

The top command is also a good tool to use to monitor your system’s processes.
One benefit to the top command is that it updates its values and statistics in
real time. You can also sort its output by CPU usage, and it allows you to kill
a process using a semi-graphical UI. If you’d like to learn more about the top
command, check out the Using top to Monitor Server Performance guide.

MORE INFORMATION

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on
this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful,
please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally
hosted materials.

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