ps: 65535 is an invalid non-numeric argument for -p option

UNIX Solaris
1

I want to figure out what is the reason of error message I have in Solaris 10. Why Solaris 10 dosn't recognize 65535?

ps: 65535 is an invalid non-numeric argument for -p option

usage: ps [ -aAdeflcjLPyZ ] [ -o format ] [ -t termlist ]

    [ -u userlist ] [ -U userlist ] [ -G grouplist ]

    [ -p proclist ] [ -g pgrplist ] [ -s sidlist ] [ -z zonelist ]

'format' is one or more of:

Thank you

2

It recognizes 30000 but fails with 30001 with that clueless error message about 30001 being "non-numeric". Traditionally Unix limited pid's to 30000 so in the old days this would be a reasonable limit (but they need to work on that error message). But on Solaris 10 limits.h says the largest PID is 999999. I believe that Sun has indeed cranked up the max pid and thus there is, at this point, a bug in ps.

3

hmm, i've tried it on my workstation, it's not a bug in ps, it just don't work with the default settings from solaris (30.000 like perderabo said) as a limit and it doesn't work with pids creater then the limit which is set in the kernel.

see:

root@mp-wst01 # uname -a
SunOS mp-wst01 5.10 Generic_118833-24 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Blade-100
root@mp-wst01 # grep pidmax /etc/system
set pidmax=98302
root@mp-wst01 #
root@mp-wst01 # adb -P ">> " -k /dev/ksyms /dev/mem
physmem 1799c
>> pidmax /D
pidmax:
pidmax:         98302
>>
root@mp-wst01 # ps -p 65535
   PID TTY         TIME CMD
root@mp-wst01 #
root@mp-wst01 # ps -p 98302
   PID TTY         TIME CMD
root@mp-wst01 #
root@mp-wst01 # ps -p 98303
ps: 98303 is an invalid non-numeric argument for -p option
usage: ps [ -aAdeflcjLPyZ ] [ -o format ] [ -t termlist ]
        [ -u userlist ] [ -U userlist ] [ -G grouplist ]
        [ -p proclist ] [ -g pgrplist ] [ -s sidlist ] [ -z zonelist ]
  'format' is one or more of:
        user ruser group rgroup uid ruid gid rgid pid ppid pgid sid taskid ctid
        pri opri pcpu pmem vsz rss osz nice class time etime stime zone zoneid
        f s c lwp nlwp psr tty addr wchan fname comm args projid project pset
root@mp-wst01 #

here's the description from the "Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual":

but true.. a very bad error message from "ps"... :smiley:

regards pressy

4

The smart desision! Is the maxpid setting will be effective for curent session only in the proposed solution?

5

that's a kernel setting and it will effect the whole system...

regards pressy

6

Meantime, 65535 in the scripts, is it just a hystorical way to indicate -1? Does it work in long types for pidmax 9999999 with the same sense?