ps

A Node.js module for looking up running processes. This module uses Table-Parser to parse the output.

Before using this module, you should take look at section Existing Bugs You Should Know at the bottom of this doc.

Install

$ npm install ps-node

How Does It Work

This module uses different tools to get process list:

• Linux / Mac: use ps command. Since the default result from shell command $ ps will not contain "command arguments" in linux like "ubuntu", ps-node add arguments lx as default. Which means, the default value for option psargs is lx.
• Win: use command wmic process get ProcessId,CommandLine through "cmd", more info about wmic is here. Anyway, there is also another tool name tasklist in windows, which can also list all the running processes, but lack of command arguments infomation. But compared to wmic, I think this tool should have a higher performance. You should take a look at the wrapper for this tool tasklist by @sindresorhs if you are interested.

Compatibility

• Should work great in most *nix system.
• Should work on Win10/7 more system versions need to be test.

Any compatibility issue is welcomed.

Usage

Lookup process with specified pid:

var ps = require('ps-node');

// A simple pid lookup
ps.lookup({ pid: 12345 }, function(err, resultList ) {
    if (err) {
        throw new Error( err );
    }

    var process = resultList[ 0 ];

    if( process ){

        console.log( 'PID: %s, COMMAND: %s, ARGUMENTS: %s', process.pid, process.command, process.arguments );
    }
    else {
        console.log( 'No such process found!' );
    }
});

Or use RegExp to filter command and arguments:

var ps = require('ps-node');

// A simple pid lookup
ps.lookup({
    command: 'node',
    arguments: '--debug',
    }, function(err, resultList ) {
    if (err) {
        throw new Error( err );
    }

    resultList.forEach(function( process ){
        if( process ){

            console.log( 'PID: %s, COMMAND: %s, ARGUMENTS: %s', process.pid, process.command, process.arguments );
        }
    });
});

Also, you can use kill to kill process by pid:

var ps = require('ps-node');

// A simple pid lookup
ps.kill( '12345', function( err ) {
    if (err) {
        throw new Error( err );
    }
    else {
        console.log( 'Process %s has been killed!', pid );
    }
});

Method kill also supports a signal option to be passed. It's only a wrapper of process.kill() with checking of that killing is finished after the method is called.

var ps = require('ps-node');

// Pass signal SIGKILL for killing the process without allowing it to clean up
ps.kill( '12345', 'SIGKILL', function( err ) {
    if (err) {
        throw new Error( err );
    }
    else {
        console.log( 'Process %s has been killed without a clean-up!', pid );
    }
});

you can use object as the second parameter to pass more options:

ps.kill( '12345', { 
    signal: 'SIGKILL',
    timeout: 10,  // will set up a ten seconds timeout if the killing is not successful
}, function(){});

Notice that the nodejs build-in process.kill() does not accept number as the signal, you will have to use string format.

You can also pass arguments to lookup with psargs as arguments for ps command（Note that psargs is not available in windows):

var ps = require('ps-node');

// A simple pid lookup
ps.lookup({
    command: 'node',
    psargs: 'ux'
    }, function(err, resultList ) {
    if (err) {
        throw new Error( err );
    }

    resultList.forEach(function( process ){
        if( process ){
            console.log( 'PID: %s, COMMAND: %s, ARGUMENTS: %s', process.pid, process.command, process.arguments );
        }
    });
});

Lastly, you can filter a list of items by their PPID by passing a PPID to filter on. You will need to pass in a psarg that provides the PPID in the results (-l or -j for instance).

var ps = require('ps-node');

// A simple pid lookup
ps.lookup({
    command: 'mongod',
    psargs: '-l',
    ppid: 82292
    }, function(err, resultList ) {
    if (err) {
        throw new Error( err );
    }

    resultList.forEach(function( process ){
        if( process ){
            console.log( 'PID: %s, COMMAND: %s, ARGUMENTS: %s', process.pid, process.command, process.arguments );
        }
    });
});

Existing Bugs You Should Know

I'm still working on these bugs at the moment, before using this module in any serious way, please take a look at them, and take your own risk.

• multiple-bytes characters may cause parse error.

2017-04-21

• publish 0.1.6
• use lx as default options for ps command
• remove debugging console log for kill()
• add timeout for kill(), default to 30s

2017-03-26

• publish 0.1.5
• Add parent process ID support for windows
• use spawn to replace exec for Linux/Unix system
• add appVeyor integration
• use Travis for npm publishing
• refactor the implementation of kill(), now just a wrapper of built-in process.kill()

2016-06-23

• Publish 0.1.2
• change command and argument matching to case insensitive.

2016-05-05

• Publish 0.1.1 update table-parser to 0.1.1
• Integrate with Travis-CI linux / mac is fully tested now
• Manually test on Win10 and Win7

2016-04-26

• Publish 0.1.0 update table-parser to 0.1.0

2015-09-20

• Publish 0.0.5.
• Merge #5: Add license type MIT.
• Merge #6: Allow for stdout to return the data in chunks.