PSTREE(1) User Commands PSTREE(1)
NAME
pstree - display a tree of processes
SYNOPSIS
pstree [-a, --arguments] [-c, --compact-not] [-C, --color attr]
[-g, --show-pgids] [-h, --highlight-all, -H pid, --highlight-pid pid]
[-l, --long] [-n, --numeric-sort] [-N, --ns-sort ns] [-p, --show-pids]
[-s, --show-parents] [-S, --ns-changes] [-t, --thread-names]
[-T, --hide-threads] [-u, --uid-changes] [-Z, --security-context]
[-A, --ascii, -G, --vt100, -U, --unicode] [pid, user]
pstree -V, --version
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 hap-
pened. 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 processes. 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 for processes but not threads.
-A Use ASCII characters to draw the tree.
-c Disable compaction of identical subtrees. By default, subtrees
are compacted whenever possible.
-C Color the process name by given attribute. Currently pstree only
accepts the value age which colors by process age. Processes
newer than 60 seconds are green, newer than an hour yellow and
the remaining red.
-g Show PGIDs. Process Group IDs are shown as decimal numbers in
parentheses after each process name. If both PIDs and PGIDs are
displayed then PIDs are shown first.
-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 highlighting 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 avail-
able.
-l Display long lines. By default, lines are truncated to either
the COLUMNS environment variable or the display width. If nei-
ther of these methods work, the default of 132 columns is used.
-n Sort processes with the same parent by PID instead of by name.
(Numeric sort.)
-N Show individual trees for each namespace of the type specified.
The available types are: ipc, mnt, net, pid, time, user, uts.
Regular users don't have access to other users' processes infor-
mation, so the output will be limited.
-p Show PIDs. PIDs are shown as decimal numbers in parentheses af-
ter each process name. -p implicitly disables compaction.
-s Show parent processes of the specified process.
-S Show namespaces transitions. Like -N, the output is limited when
running as a regular user.
-t Show full names for threads when available.
-T Hide threads and only show processes.
-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
' 33%8' and left with echo -e ' 33%@'.
-V Display version information.
-Z Show the current security attributes of the process. For SELinux
systems this will be the security context.
FILES
/proc location of the proc file system
BUGS
Some character sets may be incompatible with the VT100 characters.
SEE ALSO
ps(1), top(1), proc(5).
psmisc 2021-06-21 PSTREE(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 04:14:31 CET 2025.