1.129. procps

An updated procps package that fixes various bugs is now available.

The procps package contains a set of system utilities that provide system information. The procps package includes the following commands: ps, free, skill, pkill, pgrep, snice, tload, top, uptime, vmstat, w, watch, and pdwx.

This updated procps package includes fixes for the following bugs:

* The vmstat command, which reports virtual memory statistics, accepted as arguments to its "-S" (size) option the letters "k", "K" or "M". These size identifiers had to be preceded by whitespace, such as in "vmstat -S M". This update removes the whitespace restriction so that the size-representing letter can immediately follow the option; for example, "vmstat -Sk" is now equivalent to "vmstat -S k". (BZ#531439)

* The manual page for the ps command (which displays a snapshot of currently active processes) used a non-standard layout with faulty indentation. With this update, the ps manual page has been modified to match the standard manual page layout. (BZ#564310)

* The vmstat command restricted the length of a device name to 15 character, when, in fact, the device name can be up to 32 characters long. As a result, devices with a 15 and more character names were not displayed when the "vmstat -d" command was issued. With this update, the character limit has been increased to allow device names with up to 32 characters. (BZ#586078)

* Prior to this update, the manual page for the pmap command (which displays a memory map of one or more processes) did not describe the column elements (that is, Address, Kbytes, RSS, Dirty Mode, and Mapping) in the table provided by the "pmap -x" command. With this update, the pmap manual page now provides a short description for each of the aforementioned column elements. (BZ#586116)

* When using the top command (which provides a dynamic real-time view of active processes), a slight inaccuracy in the computing of values in the "%CPU" column caused the displayed values to be higher than 100%. This update fixes this behavior and values displayed in the "%CPU" column can no longer exceed 100%. (BZ#616829)

All users of procps are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves these issues.