This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Exploring /proc/ - tips and tricks for the procfs Author : Remy van Elst Date : 28-01-2013 URL : https://raymii.org/s/snippets/Procfs_tips_and_tricks.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- > procfs (or the proc filesystem) is a special filesystem in UNIX-like operating systems that presents information about processes and other system information in a hierarchical file-like structure, providing a more convenient and standardized method for dynamically accessing process data held in the kernel than traditional tracing methods or direct access to kernel memory. Typically, it is mapped to a mount point named /proc at boot time. Note that most /proc/ entries are separated by null characters, and there may be a null character at the end. Where applicable the `tr` command is used to replace these.

Recently I removed all Google Ads from this site due to their invasive tracking, as well as Google Analytics. Please, if you found this content useful, consider a small donation using any of the options below:

I'm developing an open source monitoring app called Leaf Node Monitoring, for windows, linux & android. Go check it out!

Consider sponsoring me on Github. It means the world to me if you show your appreciation and you'll help pay the server costs.

You can also sponsor me by getting a Digital Ocean VPS. With this referral link you'll get $100 credit for 60 days.

### Processes Inside the `/proc` directory every process has a folder, named after its process ID. For example, my `nagios3` program has the following process ID: ps aux | grep [n]agios3 | awk '{ print $2 }' 3363 So it has its own special folder: `/proc/3363`. Every process has a folder like `/proc/$PID` where $PID is its process ID. I'll cover a few specific files of a process folder below. #### exe This is a symlink to the process binary: sudo ls -l /proc/3363/exe lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2013-01-26 15:18 /proc/3363/exe -> /usr/sbin/nagios3 #### cmdline This shows the command which started the process: (sudo cat /proc/3363/cmdline; echo) | tr "\000" " " /usr/sbin/nagios3 -d /etc/nagios3/nagios.cfg #### cwd This is a symlink to the process current working directory: sudo ls -la /proc/3363/cwd lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2013-01-26 15:18 /proc/3363/cwd -> / #### environ This gives us the environment of the command (your `env`) which also shows us all the user variables and such: (sudo cat /proc/3363/environ; echo) | tr "\000" "\n" [output truncated] #### status This gives us a `ps` like information overview for the process: cat /proc/3363/status Name: nagios3 State: S (sleeping) Tgid: 3363 Pid: 3363 PPid: 1 TracerPid: 0 [output truncated] #### limits This gives the limits the process has, which can be set and tweaked using `ulimit`: sudo cat /proc/3363/limits Limit Soft Limit Hard Limit Units Max cpu time unlimited unlimited seconds Max file size unlimited unlimited bytes Max data size unlimited unlimited bytes Max stack size 8388608 unlimited bytes Max core file size 0 unlimited bytes Max resident set unlimited unlimited bytes Max processes unlimited unlimited processes [output truncated] ### Non Processes There are also a lot of "general" files which give you system information. #### /proc/filesystems This gives a list of all the filesystems supported by the current kernel: cat /proc/filesystems nodev sysfs nodev rootfs nodev bdev nodev proc nodev cgroup When it has `nodev` before it, it means it is a non-physical filesystems such as network filesystems and proc. #### /proc/cpuinfo This return a lot of info about the processor(s). cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 3 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.60GHz stepping : 9 #### /proc/uptime This returns the uptime as two decimal values in seconds, separated by a space, the amount of time since the kernel was started and the amount of time that the kernel has been idle. cat /proc/uptime 3121129.58 4100521.65 #### /proc/cmdline This gives the current command line passed to the running kernel (by GRUB/lilo): cat /proc/cmdline BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-21-generic-pae root=UUID=[...] ro quiet #### /proc/version This gives very detailed kernel version information. More than with `uname -a`, see the comparison: cat /proc/version Linux version 2.6.18-21-custom-pae-bfs (remy@solaris3) (gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.2-ubuntu5.1) ) #101-Ubuntu SMP Mon Dec 3 15:56:38 UTC 2012 uname -a Linux solaris3 2.6.18-21-custom-pae-bfs #101-Ubuntu SMP Mon Dec 3 15:56:38 UTC 2012 i686 GNU/Linux (Note that this is a custom kernel, hence the `remy@solaris3`). #### /proc/modules This returns a list of currently loaded kernel modules: cat /proc/modules btrfs 462393 0 - Live 0xf908d000 zlib_deflate 19568 1 btrfs, Live 0xf87e9000 crc32c 2519 1 - Live 0xf8410000 #### /proc/scsi/scsi This gives information on the attached SCSI devices (handy on servers, also does SAS): cat /proc/scsi/scsi Attached devices: Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: TEAC Model: CD-224E Rev: K.9A Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 05 #### /proc/uptime This gives the same result as the `uptime` command, with two extra's. The fourth field consists of two numbers separated by a slash, the first one represents the number of currently executing processes/threads. This number will not exceed the number of processors cores the system has.The second number (the one after the slash) represents the number of processes/threads currently existing on the system. The fifth field has the most reced PID created (probably of the `cat` command you just did.) cat /proc/loadavg 1.02 1.43 1.40 1/132 16254 ### The /proc/net folder This folder has information about the network stack. #### /proc/net/route This is the systems routing table, in HEX format: cat /proc/net/route Iface Destination Gateway Flags RefCnt Use Metric Mask MTU Window IRTT eth0 0EF1D9C2 00000000 0001 0 0 0 00FFFFFF 0 0 0 eth0 00000000 0EF1D9C2 0003 0 0 100 00000000 0 0 0 #### /proc/net/arp This has the system ARP table, also in HEX format. Using the `arp -a` command gives more readable output. cat /proc/net/arp IP address HW type Flags HW address Mask Device 10.0.20.3 0x1 0x2 00:11:22:33:44:55 * eth0 10.0.20.4 0x1 0x2 00:11:11:11:44:55 * eth0 #### /proc/net/dev This has information about sent and received packages for all interfaces. `ifconfig` gives a more readable output. cat /proc/net/dev Inter-| Receive |Transmit face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed lo:775661077 998843 0 0 0 0 0 0 775661077 998843 0 0 0 0 0 0 eth0:2914473149 1605253769 1 0 0 1 0 0 3861718441 884372746 0 0 0 0 0 0 ### /proc/sys #### /proc/sys/vm/swappiness This value controls how willing the kernel will be to swap memory. If you raise this number, the kernel will want to swap more often, while lowering it will decrease his tendency to swap. cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness 60 #### /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max This value is the maximum number of processes/threads that can exist at any given time on the system. cat /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max 32068 #### /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/forwarding This file controls if the kernel forwards packets. If your system is not acting as a router or firewall this should be off (0). You can change it by `echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/forwarding` or by setting it in `/etc/sysctl.conf`. cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/forwarding 0 #### /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches Writing to this file causes the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free. To free pagecache, dentries and inodes, use `echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches`. Because this is a nondestructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, you should run `sync` first! #### /proc/sysrq-trigger Writing a character to this file triggers the SysRq function sent by the key. This file is only writable by root. If you don't know what sysreq is, [read the wikipedia page to find out more.][2] #### /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip _local_ port_range This controls the ports locally available for opening. If you use for example an apache or nginx proxy, that service will have to open two connections for each request (one to the client, one to the backend). Setting this value higher will in heavy load environments give a performance boost. cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range 32768 61000 [1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.