ps u does not show all user names

[h.koenig]

"ps uax" does not show user _names_ for uid 44 and 45:

root@om-gta02:~# ps uax | grep -v root
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
daemon 1352 0.0 0.3 1500 380 ? Ss Sep01 0:00 /sbin/portmap
44 1401 0.1 0.7 2376 884 ? Ss Sep01 0:48 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
45 1408 0.0 1.7 4524 2112 ? Ss Sep01 0:05 /usr/sbin/hald
avahi 1440 0.0 1.1 2832 1408 ? Ss Sep01 0:00 avahi-daemon: running [om-gta02.local]
nobody 1491 0.0 1.2 4296 1568 ? S<s Sep01 0:00 gpsd /dev/ttySAC1

but there are defined in /etc/passwd:

root@om-gta02:~# egrep '44|45' /etc/passwd
messagebus:x:44:64004:Linux User_{,:/var/run/dbus:/bin/sh
haldaemon:x:45:64006:HAL:/var/run/hald:/bin/sh}

this is Om 2008.8 + updates:

root@om-gta02:~# ls -l /bin/ps
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 1 21:18 /bin/ps -> ps.procps

root@om-gta02:~# ls -l /bin/ps.procps
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 96304 Jan 1 1970 /bin/ps.procps

root@om-gta02:~# opkg list_installed procps
procps - 3.2.7-r5 -

[darkjames]

it's standard behaviour of ps, from man 1 ps:

#v+
euser EUSER effective user name. This will be the textual user ID,

if it can be obtained and the field width permits,
or a decimal representation otherwise.

#v-

default width for user is I think 8, if you want more, you could patch procps, or use your own format instead of 'u', for instance:

$ ps axo user:30,pid,pcpu,pmem,vsz,rss,tname,stat,start_time,bsdtime,args

So it isn't bug. hth

[h.koenig]

So it isn't bug. hth

thanks for the pointer!

default width for user is I think 8, if you want more, you could patch procps, or use your own format instead of 'u', for instance:

$ ps axo user:30,pid,pcpu,pmem,vsz,rss,tname,stat,start_time,bsdtime,args

I think that's not the right way to go.

so what about using a shorter user name for those accounts ?

[john_lee]

wontfix for obvious reason :)