Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 30 Jun 1999 09:44:05 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Donald Burr <dburr@pobox.com>
To:        Michael Jaskowiak <skovian@interpath.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   RE: questions on ps
Message-ID:  <XFMail.990630094405.dburr@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <377A392F.75FD@interpath.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (actually, it was on 30-Jun-99),
the great prophet Michael Jaskowiak once wrote:
># ps x
>   PID  TT  STAT      TIME COMMAND
>     0  ??  DLs    0:00.00  (swapper)
>     1  ??  Ss     0:00.00  (init)
>     2  ??  DL     0:00.00  (pagedaemon)
>[...]
> Here is the output from a normal server's 'ps x' command.  There are
> identical services running on both computers.  
># ps x
>   PID  TT  STAT      TIME COMMAND
>     0  ??  DLs    0:00.00  (swapper)
>     1  ??  Ss     0:00.01 /sbin/init --
>     2  ??  DL     0:00.00  (pagedaemon)
>     3  ??  DL     0:00.00  (vmdaemon)
>     4  ??  DL     0:00.07  (syncer)
>    96  ??  Is     0:00.07 syslogd
>   138  ??  Is     0:00.03 inetd
>   141  ??  Ss     0:00.02 cron
>   211  ??  Ss     0:00.03 telnetd
>   220  ??  S      0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty std.9600 ttyd4
>   216  p0  S      0:00.02 su (sh)
>   221  p0  R+     0:00.00 ps -x
>   189  v0  Is+    0:00.03 -sh (sh)
>   190  v1  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv1
>   191  v2  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv2

What this usually means (where commands show up as "(commandname)" and no
details in `ps -x') is that the process is swapped out to disk, and so the
process details (arguments, etc.) are unavailable.  So rather than
swapping the processes back into memory to get their details, the `ps'
command simply prints the process name and omits the arguments and other
details.  But I find it hard to believe that, on a 384 MB machine, all of
your processes have been swapped out.  (Unless there is slmething
extremely large that is running)  Maybe your /proc filesystem is not
mounted?  Sorry I don't have any further ideas.
---
Donald Burr <dburr@pobox.com>-Member The FreeBSD Project| PGP: Your
*NEW* WWW HomePage: http://more.at/dburr/ ICQ #16997506 | right to
Address: P.O. Box 91212, Santa Barbara, CA 93190-1212   | 'Net privacy.
Phone: (805) 957-9666    FAX: (800) 492-5954            | USE IT.


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?XFMail.990630094405.dburr>