Usage: pstree [ -a ] [ -c ] [ -h | -H PID ] [ -l ] [ -n ] [ -p ] [ -u ]
[ -A | -G | -U ] [ PID | USER ]
pstree -V
Display a tree of processes.
-a show command line arguments
-A use ASCII line drawing characters
-c don't compact identical subtrees
-h highlight current process and its ancestors
-H PID highlight this process and its ancestors
-G use VT100 line drawing characters
-l don't truncate long lines
-n sort output by PID
-p show PIDs; implies -c
-u show uid transitions
-U use UTF-8 (Unicode) line drawing characters
-V display version information
-Z show SELinux security contexts
PID start at this PID; default is 1 (init)
USER show only trees rooted at processes of this user
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME
pstree - display a tree of processes
SYNOPSIS
pstree [-a] [-c] [-h|-Hpid] [-l] [-n] [-p] [-u] [-Z] [-A|-G|-U] [pid|user]
pstree -V
DESCRIPTION
pstree shows running processes as a tree.
The tree is rooted at either pid or init if pid is omitted.
If a user name is specified, all process trees rooted at processes owned by that user are shown.
pstree visually merges identical branches by putting them in square brackets
and prefixing them with the repetition count, e.g.
init-+-getty
|-getty
|-getty
‘-getty
becomes
init---4*[getty]
Child threads of a process are found under the parent process
and are shown with the process name in curly braces, e.g.
icecast2---13*[{icecast2}]
If pstree is called as pstree.x11 then it will prompt the user at the end of the line to press return and will
not return until that has happened. This is useful for when pstree is run in a xterminal.
Certain kernel or mount parameters, such as the hidepid option for procfs, will hide information for some pro-
cesses. In these situations pstree will attempt to build the tree without this information, showing process
names as question marks.
OPTIONS
-a Show command line arguments. If the command line of a process is swapped out, that process is shown in
parentheses. -a implicitly disables compaction.
-A Use ASCII characters to draw the tree.
-c Disable compaction of identical subtrees. By default, subtrees are compacted whenever possible.
-G Use VT100 line drawing characters.
-G Use VT100 line drawing characters.
-h Highlight the current process and its ancestors. This is a no-op if the terminal doesn’t support high-
lighting or if neither the current process nor any of its ancestors are in the subtree being shown.
-H Like -h, but highlight the specified process instead. Unlike with -h, pstree fails when using -H if
highlighting is not available.
-l Display long lines. By default, lines are truncated to the display width or 132 if output is sent to a
non-tty or if the display width is unknown.
-n Sort processes with the same ancestor by PID instead of by name. (Numeric sort.)
-p Show PIDs. PIDs are shown as decimal numbers in parentheses after each process name. -p implicitly dis-
ables compaction.
-u Show uid transitions. Whenever the uid of a process differs from the uid of its parent, the new uid is
shown in parentheses after the process name.
-U Use UTF-8 (Unicode) line drawing characters. Under Linux 1.1-54 and above, UTF-8 mode is entered on the
console with echo -e ’\033%8’ and left with echo -e ’\033%@’
-V Display version information.
-Z (SELinux) Show security context for each process.
FILES
/proc location of the proc file system
AUTHORS
Werner Almesberger <werner@almesberger.net> Craig Small <csmall@small.dropbear.id.au>
BUGS
Some character sets may be incompatible with the VT100 characters.
SEE ALSO
ps(1), top(1).
