the ps utility and cron

[Andy Farkas]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Sergey Zaikov wrote:

> I have a question about a key -x from man ps(1).
> The reason of my question may be: misunderstanding man ps(1), errata at man
> ps(1) or error in ps utility.
>
> (My FreeBSD version:
> FreeBSD acc.acc.tula.ru 4.7-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE #38: Thu Mar 20
> 09:31:30 MSK 2003     acc107_3 at acc.acc.tula.ru:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/Z  i386)
>
> Man ps (1) says:
> [*SKIP*]
>  -x      Display information about processes without controlling termi-
>          nals.
> [*SKIP*]
> A processes, started from cron, is processes without controlling terminals. (Or
> I samething don't understand:)
> So:
> $> ps -ax -U acc107_3
> must diplays it and
> $>ps -a -U acc107_3
> should don't displays this processes.
>

The -U flag forces the -x flag. This is not documented in the manpage.

See /usr/src/bin/ps/ps.c for details.

--

 :{ andyf at speednet.com.au

        Andy Farkas
    System Administrator
   Speednet Communications
 http://www.speednet.com.au/