Pstree Explained

pstree is a Linux command that shows the running processes as a tree. It is used as a more visual alternative to the ps command. The root of the tree is either init or the process with the given pid. It can also be installed in other Unix systems.

In BSD systems, a similar output is created using ps -d, in Linux ps axjf^[1] produces similar output.

Examples

pstree piduser@host ~$ pstree 1066rsyslogd─┬─ └─

pstree usernameuser@host ~# pstree usernamedbus-daemon───

dbus-launch

bash───firefox─┬─6*[{Analysis Helper}] ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ ├─ └─

See also

• top
• ps
• kill
• nice
• tree

External links

• The psmisc package
• The pstree Command by The Linux Information Project (LINFO)
• Gnome Process Tree
• The portable version of pstree on GitHub

Notes and References

1. Web site: Ps(1): Report snapshot of current processes - Linux man page.