1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 T H E /proc F I L E S Y S T E M
3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 /proc/sys Terrehon Bowden <terrehon@pacbell.net> October 7 1999
5 Bodo Bauer <bb@ricochet.net>
7 2.4.x update Jorge Nerin <comandante@zaralinux.com> November 14 2000
8 move /proc/sys Shen Feng <shen@cn.fujitsu.com> April 1 2009
9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 Version 1.3 Kernel version 2.2.12
11 Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4
12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13 fixes/update part 1.1 Stefani Seibold <stefani@seibold.net> June 9 2009
19 0.1 Introduction/Credits
22 1 Collecting System Information
23 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
25 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
26 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
28 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
29 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
30 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
31 1.9 Ext4 file system parameters
33 2 Modifying System Parameters
35 3 Per-Process Parameters
36 3.1 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj & /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj - Adjust the oom-killer
38 3.2 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
39 3.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
40 3.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
41 3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
42 3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
43 3.7 /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/children - Information about task children
44 3.8 /proc/<pid>/fdinfo/<fd> - Information about opened file
45 3.9 /proc/<pid>/map_files - Information about memory mapped files
46 3.10 /proc/<pid>/timerslack_ns - Task timerslack value
47 3.11 /proc/<pid>/patch_state - Livepatch patch operation state
52 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
54 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
56 0.1 Introduction/Credits
57 ------------------------
59 This documentation is part of a soon (or so we hope) to be released book on
60 the SuSE Linux distribution. As there is no complete documentation for the
61 /proc file system and we've used many freely available sources to write these
62 chapters, it seems only fair to give the work back to the Linux community.
63 This work is based on the 2.2.* kernel version and the upcoming 2.4.*. I'm
64 afraid it's still far from complete, but we hope it will be useful. As far as
65 we know, it is the first 'all-in-one' document about the /proc file system. It
66 is focused on the Intel x86 hardware, so if you are looking for PPC, ARM,
67 SPARC, AXP, etc., features, you probably won't find what you are looking for.
68 It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols - sorry. But
69 additions and patches are welcome and will be added to this document if you
72 We'd like to thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of
73 other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a
74 special thank you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily
75 to create this document, as well as the additional information he provided.
76 Thanks to everybody else who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel
77 and helped create a great piece of software... :)
79 If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to
80 contact Bodo Bauer at bb@ricochet.net. We'll be happy to add them to this
83 The latest version of this document is available online at
84 http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/proc.html
86 If the above direction does not works for you, you could try the kernel
87 mailing list at linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org and/or try to reach me at
88 comandante@zaralinux.com.
93 We don't guarantee the correctness of this document, and if you come to us
94 complaining about how you screwed up your system because of incorrect
95 documentation, we won't feel responsible...
97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
98 CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION
99 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
101 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
103 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
104 * Investigating the properties of the pseudo file system /proc and its
105 ability to provide information on the running Linux system
106 * Examining /proc's structure
107 * Uncovering various information about the kernel and the processes running
109 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
112 The proc file system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the
113 kernel. It can be used to obtain information about the system and to change
114 certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl).
116 First, we'll take a look at the read-only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we
117 show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings.
119 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
120 -----------------------------------
122 The directory /proc contains (among other things) one subdirectory for each
123 process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID).
125 The link self points to the process reading the file system. Each process
126 subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1-1.
129 Table 1-1: Process specific entries in /proc
130 ..............................................................................
132 clear_refs Clears page referenced bits shown in smaps output
133 cmdline Command line arguments
134 cpu Current and last cpu in which it was executed (2.4)(smp)
135 cwd Link to the current working directory
136 environ Values of environment variables
137 exe Link to the executable of this process
138 fd Directory, which contains all file descriptors
139 maps Memory maps to executables and library files (2.4)
140 mem Memory held by this process
141 root Link to the root directory of this process
143 statm Process memory status information
144 status Process status in human readable form
145 wchan Present with CONFIG_KALLSYMS=y: it shows the kernel function
146 symbol the task is blocked in - or "0" if not blocked.
148 stack Report full stack trace, enable via CONFIG_STACKTRACE
149 smaps an extension based on maps, showing the memory consumption of
150 each mapping and flags associated with it
151 numa_maps an extension based on maps, showing the memory locality and
152 binding policy as well as mem usage (in pages) of each mapping.
153 ..............................................................................
155 For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is
156 read the file /proc/PID/status:
158 >cat /proc/self/status
186 SigPnd: 0000000000000000
187 ShdPnd: 0000000000000000
188 SigBlk: 0000000000000000
189 SigIgn: 0000000000000000
190 SigCgt: 0000000000000000
191 CapInh: 00000000fffffeff
192 CapPrm: 0000000000000000
193 CapEff: 0000000000000000
194 CapBnd: ffffffffffffffff
197 voluntary_ctxt_switches: 0
198 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 1
200 This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
201 the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its
202 information. But you get a more detailed view of the process by reading the
203 file /proc/PID/status. It fields are described in table 1-2.
205 The statm file contains more detailed information about the process
206 memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-3. The stat file
207 contains details information about the process itself. Its fields are
208 explained in Table 1-4.
210 (for SMP CONFIG users)
211 For making accounting scalable, RSS related information are handled in an
212 asynchronous manner and the value may not be very precise. To see a precise
213 snapshot of a moment, you can see /proc/<pid>/smaps file and scan page table.
214 It's slow but very precise.
216 Table 1-2: Contents of the status files (as of 4.8)
217 ..............................................................................
219 Name filename of the executable
220 Umask file mode creation mask
221 State state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping
222 in an uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie,
223 T is traced or stopped)
225 Ngid NUMA group ID (0 if none)
227 PPid process id of the parent process
228 TracerPid PID of process tracing this process (0 if not)
229 Uid Real, effective, saved set, and file system UIDs
230 Gid Real, effective, saved set, and file system GIDs
231 FDSize number of file descriptor slots currently allocated
232 Groups supplementary group list
233 NStgid descendant namespace thread group ID hierarchy
234 NSpid descendant namespace process ID hierarchy
235 NSpgid descendant namespace process group ID hierarchy
236 NSsid descendant namespace session ID hierarchy
237 VmPeak peak virtual memory size
238 VmSize total program size
239 VmLck locked memory size
240 VmPin pinned memory size
241 VmHWM peak resident set size ("high water mark")
242 VmRSS size of memory portions. It contains the three
243 following parts (VmRSS = RssAnon + RssFile + RssShmem)
244 RssAnon size of resident anonymous memory
245 RssFile size of resident file mappings
246 RssShmem size of resident shmem memory (includes SysV shm,
247 mapping of tmpfs and shared anonymous mappings)
248 VmData size of private data segments
249 VmStk size of stack segments
250 VmExe size of text segment
251 VmLib size of shared library code
252 VmPTE size of page table entries
253 VmPMD size of second level page tables
254 VmSwap amount of swap used by anonymous private data
255 (shmem swap usage is not included)
256 HugetlbPages size of hugetlb memory portions
257 Threads number of threads
258 SigQ number of signals queued/max. number for queue
259 SigPnd bitmap of pending signals for the thread
260 ShdPnd bitmap of shared pending signals for the process
261 SigBlk bitmap of blocked signals
262 SigIgn bitmap of ignored signals
263 SigCgt bitmap of caught signals
264 CapInh bitmap of inheritable capabilities
265 CapPrm bitmap of permitted capabilities
266 CapEff bitmap of effective capabilities
267 CapBnd bitmap of capabilities bounding set
268 NoNewPrivs no_new_privs, like prctl(PR_GET_NO_NEW_PRIV, ...)
269 Seccomp seccomp mode, like prctl(PR_GET_SECCOMP, ...)
270 Cpus_allowed mask of CPUs on which this process may run
271 Cpus_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
272 Mems_allowed mask of memory nodes allowed to this process
273 Mems_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
274 voluntary_ctxt_switches number of voluntary context switches
275 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches number of non voluntary context switches
276 ..............................................................................
278 Table 1-3: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3)
279 ..............................................................................
281 size total program size (pages) (same as VmSize in status)
282 resident size of memory portions (pages) (same as VmRSS in status)
283 shared number of pages that are shared (i.e. backed by a file, same
284 as RssFile+RssShmem in status)
285 trs number of pages that are 'code' (not including libs; broken,
286 includes data segment)
287 lrs number of pages of library (always 0 on 2.6)
288 drs number of pages of data/stack (including libs; broken,
289 includes library text)
290 dt number of dirty pages (always 0 on 2.6)
291 ..............................................................................
294 Table 1-4: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.30-rc7)
295 ..............................................................................
298 tcomm filename of the executable
299 state state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an
300 uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped)
301 ppid process id of the parent process
302 pgrp pgrp of the process
304 tty_nr tty the process uses
305 tty_pgrp pgrp of the tty
307 min_flt number of minor faults
308 cmin_flt number of minor faults with child's
309 maj_flt number of major faults
310 cmaj_flt number of major faults with child's
311 utime user mode jiffies
312 stime kernel mode jiffies
313 cutime user mode jiffies with child's
314 cstime kernel mode jiffies with child's
315 priority priority level
317 num_threads number of threads
318 it_real_value (obsolete, always 0)
319 start_time time the process started after system boot
320 vsize virtual memory size
321 rss resident set memory size
322 rsslim current limit in bytes on the rss
323 start_code address above which program text can run
324 end_code address below which program text can run
325 start_stack address of the start of the main process stack
326 esp current value of ESP
327 eip current value of EIP
328 pending bitmap of pending signals
329 blocked bitmap of blocked signals
330 sigign bitmap of ignored signals
331 sigcatch bitmap of caught signals
332 0 (place holder, used to be the wchan address, use /proc/PID/wchan instead)
335 exit_signal signal to send to parent thread on exit
336 task_cpu which CPU the task is scheduled on
337 rt_priority realtime priority
338 policy scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler)
339 blkio_ticks time spent waiting for block IO
340 gtime guest time of the task in jiffies
341 cgtime guest time of the task children in jiffies
342 start_data address above which program data+bss is placed
343 end_data address below which program data+bss is placed
344 start_brk address above which program heap can be expanded with brk()
345 arg_start address above which program command line is placed
346 arg_end address below which program command line is placed
347 env_start address above which program environment is placed
348 env_end address below which program environment is placed
349 exit_code the thread's exit_code in the form reported by the waitpid system call
350 ..............................................................................
352 The /proc/PID/maps file containing the currently mapped memory regions and
353 their access permissions.
357 address perms offset dev inode pathname
359 08048000-08049000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
360 08049000-0804a000 rw-p 00001000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
361 0804a000-0806b000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [heap]
362 a7cb1000-a7cb2000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
363 a7cb2000-a7eb2000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
364 a7eb2000-a7eb3000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
365 a7eb3000-a7ed5000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
366 a7ed5000-a8008000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
367 a8008000-a800a000 r--p 00133000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
368 a800a000-a800b000 rw-p 00135000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
369 a800b000-a800e000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
370 a800e000-a8022000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
371 a8022000-a8023000 r--p 00013000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
372 a8023000-a8024000 rw-p 00014000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
373 a8024000-a8027000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
374 a8027000-a8043000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
375 a8043000-a8044000 r--p 0001b000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
376 a8044000-a8045000 rw-p 0001c000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
377 aff35000-aff4a000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [stack]
378 ffffe000-fffff000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0 [vdso]
380 where "address" is the address space in the process that it occupies, "perms"
381 is a set of permissions:
387 p = private (copy on write)
389 "offset" is the offset into the mapping, "dev" is the device (major:minor), and
390 "inode" is the inode on that device. 0 indicates that no inode is associated
391 with the memory region, as the case would be with BSS (uninitialized data).
392 The "pathname" shows the name associated file for this mapping. If the mapping
393 is not associated with a file:
395 [heap] = the heap of the program
396 [stack] = the stack of the main process
397 [vdso] = the "virtual dynamic shared object",
398 the kernel system call handler
399 [anon:<name>] = an anonymous mapping that has been
402 or if empty, the mapping is anonymous.
404 The /proc/PID/smaps is an extension based on maps, showing the memory
405 consumption for each of the process's mappings. For each of mappings there
406 is a series of lines such as the following:
408 08048000-080bc000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 13130 /bin/bash
422 Private_Hugetlb: 0 kB
428 VmFlags: rd ex mr mw me dw
429 Name: name from userspace
431 the first of these lines shows the same information as is displayed for the
432 mapping in /proc/PID/maps. The remaining lines show the size of the mapping
433 (size), the amount of the mapping that is currently resident in RAM (RSS), the
434 process' proportional share of this mapping (PSS), the number of clean and
435 dirty private pages in the mapping.
437 The "proportional set size" (PSS) of a process is the count of pages it has
438 in memory, where each page is divided by the number of processes sharing it.
439 So if a process has 1000 pages all to itself, and 1000 shared with one other
440 process, its PSS will be 1500.
441 Note that even a page which is part of a MAP_SHARED mapping, but has only
442 a single pte mapped, i.e. is currently used by only one process, is accounted
443 as private and not as shared.
444 "Referenced" indicates the amount of memory currently marked as referenced or
446 "Anonymous" shows the amount of memory that does not belong to any file. Even
447 a mapping associated with a file may contain anonymous pages: when MAP_PRIVATE
448 and a page is modified, the file page is replaced by a private anonymous copy.
449 "LazyFree" shows the amount of memory which is marked by madvise(MADV_FREE).
450 The memory isn't freed immediately with madvise(). It's freed in memory
451 pressure if the memory is clean. Please note that the printed value might
452 be lower than the real value due to optimizations used in the current
453 implementation. If this is not desirable please file a bug report.
454 "AnonHugePages" shows the ammount of memory backed by transparent hugepage.
455 "ShmemPmdMapped" shows the ammount of shared (shmem/tmpfs) memory backed by
457 "Shared_Hugetlb" and "Private_Hugetlb" show the ammounts of memory backed by
458 hugetlbfs page which is *not* counted in "RSS" or "PSS" field for historical
459 reasons. And these are not included in {Shared,Private}_{Clean,Dirty} field.
460 "Swap" shows how much would-be-anonymous memory is also used, but out on swap.
461 For shmem mappings, "Swap" includes also the size of the mapped (and not
462 replaced by copy-on-write) part of the underlying shmem object out on swap.
463 "SwapPss" shows proportional swap share of this mapping. Unlike "Swap", this
464 does not take into account swapped out page of underlying shmem objects.
465 "Locked" indicates whether the mapping is locked in memory or not.
467 "VmFlags" field deserves a separate description. This member represents the kernel
468 flags associated with the particular virtual memory area in two letter encoded
469 manner. The codes are the following:
478 gd - stack segment growns down
480 dw - disabled write to the mapped file
481 lo - pages are locked in memory
482 io - memory mapped I/O area
483 sr - sequential read advise provided
484 rr - random read advise provided
485 dc - do not copy area on fork
486 de - do not expand area on remapping
487 ac - area is accountable
488 nr - swap space is not reserved for the area
489 ht - area uses huge tlb pages
490 ar - architecture specific flag
491 dd - do not include area into core dump
494 hg - huge page advise flag
495 nh - no-huge page advise flag
496 mg - mergable advise flag
498 Note that there is no guarantee that every flag and associated mnemonic will
499 be present in all further kernel releases. Things get changed, the flags may
500 be vanished or the reverse -- new added.
502 The "Name" field will only be present on a mapping that has been named by
503 userspace, and will show the name passed in by userspace.
505 This file is only present if the CONFIG_MMU kernel configuration option is
508 Note: reading /proc/PID/maps or /proc/PID/smaps is inherently racy (consistent
509 output can be achieved only in the single read call).
510 This typically manifests when doing partial reads of these files while the
511 memory map is being modified. Despite the races, we do provide the following
514 1) The mapped addresses never go backwards, which implies no two
515 regions will ever overlap.
516 2) If there is something at a given vaddr during the entirety of the
517 life of the smaps/maps walk, there will be some output for it.
520 The /proc/PID/clear_refs is used to reset the PG_Referenced and ACCESSED/YOUNG
521 bits on both physical and virtual pages associated with a process, and the
522 soft-dirty bit on pte (see Documentation/vm/soft-dirty.txt for details).
523 To clear the bits for all the pages associated with the process
524 > echo 1 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
526 To clear the bits for the anonymous pages associated with the process
527 > echo 2 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
529 To clear the bits for the file mapped pages associated with the process
530 > echo 3 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
532 To clear the soft-dirty bit
533 > echo 4 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
535 To reset the peak resident set size ("high water mark") to the process's
537 > echo 5 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
539 Any other value written to /proc/PID/clear_refs will have no effect.
541 The /proc/pid/pagemap gives the PFN, which can be used to find the pageflags
542 using /proc/kpageflags and number of times a page is mapped using
543 /proc/kpagecount. For detailed explanation, see Documentation/vm/pagemap.txt.
545 The /proc/pid/numa_maps is an extension based on maps, showing the memory
546 locality and binding policy, as well as the memory usage (in pages) of
547 each mapping. The output follows a general format where mapping details get
548 summarized separated by blank spaces, one mapping per each file line:
550 address policy mapping details
552 00400000 default file=/usr/local/bin/app mapped=1 active=0 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=4
553 00600000 default file=/usr/local/bin/app anon=1 dirty=1 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=4
554 3206000000 default file=/lib64/ld-2.12.so mapped=26 mapmax=6 N0=24 N3=2 kernelpagesize_kB=4
555 320621f000 default file=/lib64/ld-2.12.so anon=1 dirty=1 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=4
556 3206220000 default file=/lib64/ld-2.12.so anon=1 dirty=1 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=4
557 3206221000 default anon=1 dirty=1 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=4
558 3206800000 default file=/lib64/libc-2.12.so mapped=59 mapmax=21 active=55 N0=41 N3=18 kernelpagesize_kB=4
559 320698b000 default file=/lib64/libc-2.12.so
560 3206b8a000 default file=/lib64/libc-2.12.so anon=2 dirty=2 N3=2 kernelpagesize_kB=4
561 3206b8e000 default file=/lib64/libc-2.12.so anon=1 dirty=1 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=4
562 3206b8f000 default anon=3 dirty=3 active=1 N3=3 kernelpagesize_kB=4
563 7f4dc10a2000 default anon=3 dirty=3 N3=3 kernelpagesize_kB=4
564 7f4dc10b4000 default anon=2 dirty=2 active=1 N3=2 kernelpagesize_kB=4
565 7f4dc1200000 default file=/anon_hugepage\040(deleted) huge anon=1 dirty=1 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=2048
566 7fff335f0000 default stack anon=3 dirty=3 N3=3 kernelpagesize_kB=4
567 7fff3369d000 default mapped=1 mapmax=35 active=0 N3=1 kernelpagesize_kB=4
570 "address" is the starting address for the mapping;
571 "policy" reports the NUMA memory policy set for the mapping (see vm/numa_memory_policy.txt);
572 "mapping details" summarizes mapping data such as mapping type, page usage counters,
573 node locality page counters (N0 == node0, N1 == node1, ...) and the kernel page
574 size, in KB, that is backing the mapping up.
579 Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about
580 the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
581 /proc and are listed in Table 1-5. Not all of these will be present in your
582 system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
583 files are there, and which are missing.
585 Table 1-5: Kernel info in /proc
586 ..............................................................................
588 apm Advanced power management info
589 buddyinfo Kernel memory allocator information (see text) (2.5)
590 bus Directory containing bus specific information
591 cmdline Kernel command line
592 cpuinfo Info about the CPU
593 devices Available devices (block and character)
594 dma Used DMS channels
595 filesystems Supported filesystems
596 driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
597 execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4)
598 fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4)
599 fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4)
600 ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem
601 interrupts Interrupt usage
602 iomem Memory map (2.4)
603 ioports I/O port usage
604 irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?)
605 isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4)
606 kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))
608 ksyms Kernel symbol table
609 loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes
613 modules List of loaded modules
614 mounts Mounted filesystems
615 net Networking info (see text)
616 pagetypeinfo Additional page allocator information (see text) (2.5)
617 partitions Table of partitions known to the system
618 pci Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/,
619 decoupled by lspci (2.4)
621 scsi SCSI info (see text)
622 slabinfo Slab pool info
623 softirqs softirq usage
624 stat Overall statistics
625 swaps Swap space utilization
627 sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4)
628 tty Info of tty drivers
629 uptime Wall clock since boot, combined idle time of all cpus
630 version Kernel version
631 video bttv info of video resources (2.4)
632 vmallocinfo Show vmalloced areas
633 ..............................................................................
635 You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what
636 they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:
638 > cat /proc/interrupts
640 0: 8728810 XT-PIC timer
641 1: 895 XT-PIC keyboard
643 3: 531695 XT-PIC aha152x
644 4: 2014133 XT-PIC serial
645 5: 44401 XT-PIC pcnet_cs
648 12: 182918 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
650 14: 1232265 XT-PIC ide0
654 In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
655 output of a SMP machine):
657 > cat /proc/interrupts
660 0: 1243498 1214548 IO-APIC-edge timer
661 1: 8949 8958 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
662 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade
663 5: 11286 10161 IO-APIC-edge soundblaster
664 8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
665 9: 27422 27407 IO-APIC-edge 3c503
666 12: 113645 113873 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
668 14: 22491 24012 IO-APIC-edge ide0
669 15: 2183 2415 IO-APIC-edge ide1
670 17: 30564 30414 IO-APIC-level eth0
671 18: 177 164 IO-APIC-level bttv
676 NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI
677 (Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups.
679 LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU.
681 ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that
682 connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected,
683 the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big
684 problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ.
686 In 2.6.2* /proc/interrupts was expanded again. This time the goal was for
687 /proc/interrupts to display every IRQ vector in use by the system, not
688 just those considered 'most important'. The new vectors are:
690 THR -- interrupt raised when a machine check threshold counter
691 (typically counting ECC corrected errors of memory or cache) exceeds
692 a configurable threshold. Only available on some systems.
694 TRM -- a thermal event interrupt occurs when a temperature threshold
695 has been exceeded for the CPU. This interrupt may also be generated
696 when the temperature drops back to normal.
698 SPU -- a spurious interrupt is some interrupt that was raised then lowered
699 by some IO device before it could be fully processed by the APIC. Hence
700 the APIC sees the interrupt but does not know what device it came from.
701 For this case the APIC will generate the interrupt with a IRQ vector
702 of 0xff. This might also be generated by chipset bugs.
704 RES, CAL, TLB -- rescheduling, call and TLB flush interrupts are
705 sent from one CPU to another per the needs of the OS. Typically,
706 their statistics are used by kernel developers and interested users to
707 determine the occurrence of interrupts of the given type.
709 The above IRQ vectors are displayed only when relevant. For example,
710 the threshold vector does not exist on x86_64 platforms. Others are
711 suppressed when the system is a uniprocessor. As of this writing, only
712 i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays.
714 Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4.
715 It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
716 IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
717 irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and two files; default_smp_affinity and
722 0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
723 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 default_smp_affinity
727 smp_affinity is a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the
728 IRQ, you can set it by doing:
730 > echo 1 > /proc/irq/10/smp_affinity
732 This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo
733 5 which means that only the first and third CPU can handle the IRQ.
735 The contents of each smp_affinity file is the same by default:
737 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
740 There is an alternate interface, smp_affinity_list which allows specifying
741 a cpu range instead of a bitmask:
743 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity_list
746 The default_smp_affinity mask applies to all non-active IRQs, which are the
747 IRQs which have not yet been allocated/activated, and hence which lack a
748 /proc/irq/[0-9]* directory.
750 The node file on an SMP system shows the node to which the device using the IRQ
751 reports itself as being attached. This hardware locality information does not
752 include information about any possible driver locality preference.
754 prof_cpu_mask specifies which CPUs are to be profiled by the system wide
755 profiler. Default value is ffffffff (all cpus if there are only 32 of them).
757 The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin
758 between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
759 more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the
760 best choice for almost everyone. [Note this applies only to those IO-APIC's
761 that support "Round Robin" interrupt distribution.]
763 There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys.
764 The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these
765 directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the
766 directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there
767 only when networking support is present in the running kernel.
769 The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level.
770 Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2.
771 Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers,
772 directory cache, and so on).
774 ..............................................................................
776 > cat /proc/buddyinfo
778 Node 0, zone DMA 0 4 5 4 4 3 ...
779 Node 0, zone Normal 1 0 0 1 101 8 ...
780 Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 0 ...
782 External fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a
783 useful tool for helping diagnose these problems. Buddyinfo will give you a
784 clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous
787 Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are
788 available. In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in
789 ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE
790 available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc...
792 More information relevant to external fragmentation can be found in
795 > cat /proc/pagetypeinfo
799 Free pages count per migrate type at order 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
800 Node 0, zone DMA, type Unmovable 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0
801 Node 0, zone DMA, type Reclaimable 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
802 Node 0, zone DMA, type Movable 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 0 1 0 2
803 Node 0, zone DMA, type Reserve 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
804 Node 0, zone DMA, type Isolate 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
805 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Unmovable 103 54 77 1 1 1 11 8 7 1 9
806 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Reclaimable 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
807 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Movable 169 152 113 91 77 54 39 13 6 1 452
808 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Reserve 1 2 2 2 2 0 1 1 1 1 0
809 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Isolate 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
811 Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve Isolate
812 Node 0, zone DMA 2 0 5 1 0
813 Node 0, zone DMA32 41 6 967 2 0
815 Fragmentation avoidance in the kernel works by grouping pages of different
816 migrate types into the same contiguous regions of memory called page blocks.
817 A page block is typically the size of the default hugepage size e.g. 2MB on
818 X86-64. By keeping pages grouped based on their ability to move, the kernel
819 can reclaim pages within a page block to satisfy a high-order allocation.
821 The pagetypinfo begins with information on the size of a page block. It
822 then gives the same type of information as buddyinfo except broken down
823 by migrate-type and finishes with details on how many page blocks of each
826 If min_free_kbytes has been tuned correctly (recommendations made by hugeadm
827 from libhugetlbfs https://github.com/libhugetlbfs/libhugetlbfs/), one can
828 make an estimate of the likely number of huge pages that can be allocated
829 at a given point in time. All the "Movable" blocks should be allocatable
830 unless memory has been mlock()'d. Some of the Reclaimable blocks should
831 also be allocatable although a lot of filesystem metadata may have to be
832 reclaimed to achieve this.
834 ..............................................................................
838 Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory. This
839 varies by architecture and compile options. The following is from a
840 16GB PIII, which has highmem enabled. You may not have all of these fields.
844 MemTotal: 16344972 kB
846 MemAvailable: 14836172 kB
852 HighTotal: 15597528 kB
853 HighFree: 13629632 kB
864 SReclaimable: 159856 kB
865 SUnreclaim: 124508 kB
870 CommitLimit: 7669796 kB
871 Committed_AS: 100056 kB
872 VmallocTotal: 112216 kB
874 VmallocChunk: 111088 kB
875 AnonHugePages: 49152 kB
880 MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved
881 bits and the kernel binary code)
882 MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree
883 MemAvailable: An estimate of how much memory is available for starting new
884 applications, without swapping. Calculated from MemFree,
885 SReclaimable, the size of the file LRU lists, and the low
886 watermarks in each zone.
887 The estimate takes into account that the system needs some
888 page cache to function well, and that not all reclaimable
889 slab will be reclaimable, due to items being in use. The
890 impact of those factors will vary from system to system.
891 Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks
892 shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so)
893 Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the
894 pagecache). Doesn't include SwapCached
895 SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but
896 still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it
897 doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already
898 in the swapfile. This saves I/O)
899 Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not
900 reclaimed unless absolutely necessary.
901 Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used. It is more
902 eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes
904 HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory
905 Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or
906 for the pagecache. The kernel must use tricks to access
907 this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem.
909 LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that
910 highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the
911 kernel's use for its own data structures. Among many
912 other things, it is where everything from the Slab is
913 allocated. Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem.
914 SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available
915 SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily
917 Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk
918 Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk
919 AnonPages: Non-file backed pages mapped into userspace page tables
920 AnonHugePages: Non-file backed huge pages mapped into userspace page tables
921 Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries
922 Shmem: Total memory used by shared memory (shmem) and tmpfs
923 ShmemHugePages: Memory used by shared memory (shmem) and tmpfs allocated
925 ShmemPmdMapped: Shared memory mapped into userspace with huge pages
926 Slab: in-kernel data structures cache
927 SReclaimable: Part of Slab, that might be reclaimed, such as caches
928 SUnreclaim: Part of Slab, that cannot be reclaimed on memory pressure
929 PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page
931 NFS_Unstable: NFS pages sent to the server, but not yet committed to stable
933 Bounce: Memory used for block device "bounce buffers"
934 WritebackTmp: Memory used by FUSE for temporary writeback buffers
935 CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'),
936 this is the total amount of memory currently available to
937 be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to
938 if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in
939 'vm.overcommit_memory').
940 The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula:
941 CommitLimit = ([total RAM pages] - [total huge TLB pages]) *
942 overcommit_ratio / 100 + [total swap pages]
943 For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G
944 of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would
945 yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G.
946 For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation
947 in vm/overcommit-accounting.
948 Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system.
949 The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which
950 has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been
951 "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G
952 of memory, but only touches 300M of it will show up as
953 using 1G. This 1G is memory which has been "committed" to
954 by the VM and can be used at any time by the allocating
955 application. With strict overcommit enabled on the system
956 (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'),allocations which would
957 exceed the CommitLimit (detailed above) will not be permitted.
958 This is useful if one needs to guarantee that processes will
959 not fail due to lack of memory once that memory has been
960 successfully allocated.
961 VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area
962 VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used
963 VmallocChunk: largest contiguous block of vmalloc area which is free
965 ..............................................................................
969 Provides information about vmalloced/vmaped areas. One line per area,
970 containing the virtual address range of the area, size in bytes,
971 caller information of the creator, and optional information depending
972 on the kind of area :
974 pages=nr number of pages
975 phys=addr if a physical address was specified
976 ioremap I/O mapping (ioremap() and friends)
977 vmalloc vmalloc() area
980 vpages buffer for pages pointers was vmalloced (huge area)
981 N<node>=nr (Only on NUMA kernels)
982 Number of pages allocated on memory node <node>
984 > cat /proc/vmallocinfo
985 0xffffc20000000000-0xffffc20000201000 2101248 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
986 /0x2c0 pages=512 vmalloc N0=128 N1=128 N2=128 N3=128
987 0xffffc20000201000-0xffffc20000302000 1052672 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
988 /0x2c0 pages=256 vmalloc N0=64 N1=64 N2=64 N3=64
989 0xffffc20000302000-0xffffc20000304000 8192 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
990 phys=7fee8000 ioremap
991 0xffffc20000304000-0xffffc20000307000 12288 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
992 phys=7fee7000 ioremap
993 0xffffc2000031d000-0xffffc2000031f000 8192 init_vdso_vars+0x112/0x210
994 0xffffc2000031f000-0xffffc2000032b000 49152 cramfs_uncompress_init+0x2e ...
995 /0x80 pages=11 vmalloc N0=3 N1=3 N2=2 N3=3
996 0xffffc2000033a000-0xffffc2000033d000 12288 sys_swapon+0x640/0xac0 ...
998 0xffffc20000347000-0xffffc2000034c000 20480 xt_alloc_table_info+0xfe ...
999 /0x130 [x_tables] pages=4 vmalloc N0=4
1000 0xffffffffa0000000-0xffffffffa000f000 61440 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
1001 pages=14 vmalloc N2=14
1002 0xffffffffa000f000-0xffffffffa0014000 20480 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
1003 pages=4 vmalloc N1=4
1004 0xffffffffa0014000-0xffffffffa0017000 12288 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
1005 pages=2 vmalloc N1=2
1006 0xffffffffa0017000-0xffffffffa0022000 45056 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
1007 pages=10 vmalloc N0=10
1009 ..............................................................................
1013 Provides counts of softirq handlers serviced since boot time, for each cpu.
1015 > cat /proc/softirqs
1018 TIMER: 27166 27120 27097 27034
1023 SCHED: 27035 26983 26971 26746
1025 RCU: 1678 1769 2178 2250
1028 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
1029 ----------------------------
1031 The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which
1032 the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the
1033 file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory
1034 in the controller specific subtree.
1036 The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the
1039 > cat /proc/ide/drivers
1040 ide-cdrom version 4.53
1041 ide-disk version 1.08
1043 More detailed information can be found in the controller specific
1044 subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these
1045 directories contains the files shown in table 1-6.
1048 Table 1-6: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide?
1049 ..............................................................................
1051 channel IDE channel (0 or 1)
1052 config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)
1054 model Type/Chipset of IDE controller
1055 ..............................................................................
1057 Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the
1058 controllers directory. The files listed in table 1-7 are contained in these
1062 Table 1-7: IDE device information
1063 ..............................................................................
1066 capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)
1067 driver driver and version
1068 geometry physical and logical geometry
1069 identify device identify block
1071 model device identifier
1072 settings device setup
1073 smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds
1074 smart_values IDE disk management values
1075 ..............................................................................
1077 The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of
1078 the drive parameters:
1080 # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings
1081 name value min max mode
1082 ---- ----- --- --- ----
1083 bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw
1084 bios_head 255 0 255 rw
1085 bios_sect 63 0 63 rw
1086 breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw
1088 file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw
1090 keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
1091 max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw
1095 pio_mode write-only 0 255 w
1101 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
1102 --------------------------------
1104 The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1-8 shows the
1105 additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to
1106 support this. Table 1-9 lists the files and their meaning.
1109 Table 1-8: IPv6 info in /proc/net
1110 ..............................................................................
1112 udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6)
1113 tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6)
1114 raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6)
1115 igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)
1116 if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses
1117 ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6
1118 rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics
1119 sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6)
1120 snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6)
1121 ..............................................................................
1124 Table 1-9: Network info in /proc/net
1125 ..............................................................................
1127 arp Kernel ARP table
1128 dev network devices with statistics
1129 dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too
1130 (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound
1132 dev_stat network device status
1133 ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage
1134 ip_fwnames Firewall chain names
1135 ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables
1136 ip_masquerade Major masquerading table
1137 netstat Network statistics
1138 raw raw device statistics
1139 route Kernel routing table
1140 rpc Directory containing rpc info
1141 rt_cache Routing cache
1143 sockstat Socket statistics
1146 unix UNIX domain sockets
1147 wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)
1148 igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined
1149 psched Global packet scheduler parameters.
1150 netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets
1151 ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces
1152 ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache
1153 ..............................................................................
1155 You can use this information to see which network devices are available in
1156 your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices:
1159 Inter-|Receive |[...
1160 face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[...
1161 lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...
1162 ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [...
1163 eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [...
1166 ...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
1167 ...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0
1168 ...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0
1169 ...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0
1171 In addition, each Channel Bond interface has its own directory. For
1172 example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/.
1173 It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the
1174 current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how
1175 many times the slaves link has failed.
1180 If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory
1181 named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list
1182 of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi:
1184 >cat /proc/scsi/scsi
1186 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
1187 Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0
1188 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
1189 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
1190 Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S Rev: 1.04
1191 Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
1194 The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in
1195 the system. These files contain information about the controller, including
1196 the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is
1197 dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec
1198 AHA-2940 SCSI adapter:
1200 > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0
1202 Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4
1204 TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
1205 AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled
1206 AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5
1207 Adapter Configuration:
1208 SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter
1209 Ultra Wide Controller
1210 PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000
1211 Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
1212 Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
1214 SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,
1215 Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
1217 BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6
1218 Adapter Control Word: 0x005b
1219 Extended Translation: Enabled
1220 Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff
1221 Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001
1222 Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
1223 Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
1224 Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
1225 Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:
1226 {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
1227 Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:
1228 {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
1231 Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8
1232 Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)
1233 Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)
1235 Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
1236 Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)
1237 Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)
1240 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
1241 ---------------------------------------
1243 The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of
1244 your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port
1247 These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-10.
1250 Table 1-10: Files in /proc/parport
1251 ..............................................................................
1253 autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired.
1254 devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the
1255 name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear
1257 hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.
1258 irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate
1259 file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ
1261 ..............................................................................
1263 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
1264 -------------------------
1266 Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the
1267 directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in
1268 this directory, as shown in Table 1-11.
1271 Table 1-11: Files in /proc/tty
1272 ..............................................................................
1274 drivers list of drivers and their usage
1275 ldiscs registered line disciplines
1276 driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines
1277 ..............................................................................
1279 To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file
1282 > cat /proc/tty/drivers
1283 pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0-255 pty:slave
1284 pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0-255 pty:master
1285 pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0-255 pty:slave
1286 pty_master /dev/pty 2 0-255 pty:master
1287 serial /dev/cua 5 64-67 serial:callout
1288 serial /dev/ttyS 4 64-67 serial
1289 /dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster
1290 /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system
1291 /dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console
1292 /dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty
1293 unknown /dev/tty 4 1-63 console
1296 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
1297 -------------------------------------------------
1299 Various pieces of information about kernel activity are available in the
1300 /proc/stat file. All of the numbers reported in this file are aggregates
1301 since the system first booted. For a quick look, simply cat the file:
1304 cpu 2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 0 0 0
1305 cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 0 0 0
1306 cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 0 0 0
1307 intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...]
1313 softirq 183433 0 21755 12 39 1137 231 21459 2263
1315 The very first "cpu" line aggregates the numbers in all of the other "cpuN"
1316 lines. These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing
1317 different kinds of work. Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a
1318 second). The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right:
1320 - user: normal processes executing in user mode
1321 - nice: niced processes executing in user mode
1322 - system: processes executing in kernel mode
1323 - idle: twiddling thumbs
1324 - iowait: In a word, iowait stands for waiting for I/O to complete. But there
1325 are several problems:
1326 1. Cpu will not wait for I/O to complete, iowait is the time that a task is
1327 waiting for I/O to complete. When cpu goes into idle state for
1328 outstanding task io, another task will be scheduled on this CPU.
1329 2. In a multi-core CPU, the task waiting for I/O to complete is not running
1330 on any CPU, so the iowait of each CPU is difficult to calculate.
1331 3. The value of iowait field in /proc/stat will decrease in certain
1333 So, the iowait is not reliable by reading from /proc/stat.
1334 - irq: servicing interrupts
1335 - softirq: servicing softirqs
1336 - steal: involuntary wait
1337 - guest: running a normal guest
1338 - guest_nice: running a niced guest
1340 The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts serviced since boot time, for each
1341 of the possible system interrupts. The first column is the total of all
1342 interrupts serviced including unnumbered architecture specific interrupts;
1343 each subsequent column is the total for that particular numbered interrupt.
1344 Unnumbered interrupts are not shown, only summed into the total.
1346 The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs.
1348 The "btime" line gives the time at which the system booted, in seconds since
1351 The "processes" line gives the number of processes and threads created, which
1352 includes (but is not limited to) those created by calls to the fork() and
1353 clone() system calls.
1355 The "procs_running" line gives the total number of threads that are
1356 running or ready to run (i.e., the total number of runnable threads).
1358 The "procs_blocked" line gives the number of processes currently blocked,
1359 waiting for I/O to complete.
1361 The "softirq" line gives counts of softirqs serviced since boot time, for each
1362 of the possible system softirqs. The first column is the total of all
1363 softirqs serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
1367 1.9 Ext4 file system parameters
1368 -------------------------------
1370 Information about mounted ext4 file systems can be found in
1371 /proc/fs/ext4. Each mounted filesystem will have a directory in
1372 /proc/fs/ext4 based on its device name (i.e., /proc/fs/ext4/hdc or
1373 /proc/fs/ext4/dm-0). The files in each per-device directory are shown
1374 in Table 1-12, below.
1376 Table 1-12: Files in /proc/fs/ext4/<devname>
1377 ..............................................................................
1379 mb_groups details of multiblock allocator buddy cache of free blocks
1380 ..............................................................................
1384 Shows registered system console lines.
1386 To see which character device lines are currently used for the system console
1387 /dev/console, you may simply look into the file /proc/consoles:
1389 > cat /proc/consoles
1395 device name of the device
1396 operations R = can do read operations
1397 W = can do write operations
1399 flags E = it is enabled
1400 C = it is preferred console
1401 B = it is primary boot console
1402 p = it is used for printk buffer
1403 b = it is not a TTY but a Braille device
1404 a = it is safe to use when cpu is offline
1405 major:minor major and minor number of the device separated by a colon
1407 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1409 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1410 The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only
1411 allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status
1412 by reading files in the hierarchy.
1414 The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes
1415 it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data.
1416 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1418 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1419 CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS
1420 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1422 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1424 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1425 * Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys
1426 * Exploring the files which modify certain parameters
1427 * Review of the /proc/sys file tree
1428 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1431 A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only
1432 a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the
1433 kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system,
1434 but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a
1435 production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that
1436 everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to
1437 reboot the machine once an error has been made.
1439 To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is
1440 given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do
1441 this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your
1444 The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and
1445 general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files
1446 can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both
1447 documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be
1448 very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may
1449 change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt
1450 review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation.
1451 This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2
1452 kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel.
1454 Please see: Documentation/sysctl/ directory for descriptions of these
1457 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1459 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1460 Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the
1461 need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the
1462 /proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo
1463 command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings
1465 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1467 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1468 CHAPTER 3: PER-PROCESS PARAMETERS
1469 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1471 3.1 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj & /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj- Adjust the oom-killer score
1472 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1474 These file can be used to adjust the badness heuristic used to select which
1475 process gets killed in out of memory conditions.
1477 The badness heuristic assigns a value to each candidate task ranging from 0
1478 (never kill) to 1000 (always kill) to determine which process is targeted. The
1479 units are roughly a proportion along that range of allowed memory the process
1480 may allocate from based on an estimation of its current memory and swap use.
1481 For example, if a task is using all allowed memory, its badness score will be
1482 1000. If it is using half of its allowed memory, its score will be 500.
1484 There is an additional factor included in the badness score: the current memory
1485 and swap usage is discounted by 3% for root processes.
1487 The amount of "allowed" memory depends on the context in which the oom killer
1488 was called. If it is due to the memory assigned to the allocating task's cpuset
1489 being exhausted, the allowed memory represents the set of mems assigned to that
1490 cpuset. If it is due to a mempolicy's node(s) being exhausted, the allowed
1491 memory represents the set of mempolicy nodes. If it is due to a memory
1492 limit (or swap limit) being reached, the allowed memory is that configured
1493 limit. Finally, if it is due to the entire system being out of memory, the
1494 allowed memory represents all allocatable resources.
1496 The value of /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj is added to the badness score before it
1497 is used to determine which task to kill. Acceptable values range from -1000
1498 (OOM_SCORE_ADJ_MIN) to +1000 (OOM_SCORE_ADJ_MAX). This allows userspace to
1499 polarize the preference for oom killing either by always preferring a certain
1500 task or completely disabling it. The lowest possible value, -1000, is
1501 equivalent to disabling oom killing entirely for that task since it will always
1502 report a badness score of 0.
1504 Consequently, it is very simple for userspace to define the amount of memory to
1505 consider for each task. Setting a /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj value of +500, for
1506 example, is roughly equivalent to allowing the remainder of tasks sharing the
1507 same system, cpuset, mempolicy, or memory controller resources to use at least
1508 50% more memory. A value of -500, on the other hand, would be roughly
1509 equivalent to discounting 50% of the task's allowed memory from being considered
1510 as scoring against the task.
1512 For backwards compatibility with previous kernels, /proc/<pid>/oom_adj may also
1513 be used to tune the badness score. Its acceptable values range from -16
1514 (OOM_ADJUST_MIN) to +15 (OOM_ADJUST_MAX) and a special value of -17
1515 (OOM_DISABLE) to disable oom killing entirely for that task. Its value is
1516 scaled linearly with /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj.
1518 The value of /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj may be reduced no lower than the last
1519 value set by a CAP_SYS_RESOURCE process. To reduce the value any lower
1520 requires CAP_SYS_RESOURCE.
1522 Caveat: when a parent task is selected, the oom killer will sacrifice any first
1523 generation children with separate address spaces instead, if possible. This
1524 avoids servers and important system daemons from being killed and loses the
1525 minimal amount of work.
1528 3.2 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
1529 -------------------------------------------------------------
1531 This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for
1532 any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj to tune which
1533 process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation.
1536 3.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
1537 -------------------------------------------------------
1539 This file contains IO statistics for each running process
1544 test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat &
1547 test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io
1553 write_bytes: 323932160
1554 cancelled_write_bytes: 0
1563 I/O counter: chars read
1564 The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This
1565 is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread().
1566 It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual
1567 physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from
1574 I/O counter: chars written
1575 The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written
1576 to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar.
1582 I/O counter: read syscalls
1583 Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read()
1590 I/O counter: write syscalls
1591 Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like
1592 write() and pwrite().
1598 I/O counter: bytes read
1599 Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to
1600 be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is
1601 accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and
1602 CIFS at a later time>
1608 I/O counter: bytes written
1609 Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to
1610 the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time.
1613 cancelled_write_bytes
1614 ---------------------
1616 The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and
1617 then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have
1618 been accounted as having caused 1MB of write.
1619 In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen,
1620 by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task
1621 truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted
1622 for (in its write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that
1623 from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing
1630 At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if
1631 process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of
1632 those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result.
1635 More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in
1636 Documentation/accounting.
1638 3.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
1639 ---------------------------------------------------------------
1640 When a process is dumped, all anonymous memory is written to a core file as
1641 long as the size of the core file isn't limited. But sometimes we don't want
1642 to dump some memory segments, for example, huge shared memory or DAX.
1643 Conversely, sometimes we want to save file-backed memory segments into a core
1644 file, not only the individual files.
1646 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter allows you to customize which memory segments
1647 will be dumped when the <pid> process is dumped. coredump_filter is a bitmask
1648 of memory types. If a bit of the bitmask is set, memory segments of the
1649 corresponding memory type are dumped, otherwise they are not dumped.
1651 The following 9 memory types are supported:
1652 - (bit 0) anonymous private memory
1653 - (bit 1) anonymous shared memory
1654 - (bit 2) file-backed private memory
1655 - (bit 3) file-backed shared memory
1656 - (bit 4) ELF header pages in file-backed private memory areas (it is
1657 effective only if the bit 2 is cleared)
1658 - (bit 5) hugetlb private memory
1659 - (bit 6) hugetlb shared memory
1660 - (bit 7) DAX private memory
1661 - (bit 8) DAX shared memory
1663 Note that MMIO pages such as frame buffer are never dumped and vDSO pages
1664 are always dumped regardless of the bitmask status.
1666 Note that bits 0-4 don't affect hugetlb or DAX memory. hugetlb memory is
1667 only affected by bit 5-6, and DAX is only affected by bits 7-8.
1669 The default value of coredump_filter is 0x33; this means all anonymous memory
1670 segments, ELF header pages and hugetlb private memory are dumped.
1672 If you don't want to dump all shared memory segments attached to pid 1234,
1673 write 0x31 to the process's proc file.
1675 $ echo 0x31 > /proc/1234/coredump_filter
1677 When a new process is created, the process inherits the bitmask status from its
1678 parent. It is useful to set up coredump_filter before the program runs.
1681 $ echo 0x7 > /proc/self/coredump_filter
1684 3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
1685 --------------------------------------------------------
1687 This file contains lines of the form:
1689 36 35 98:0 /mnt1 /mnt2 rw,noatime master:1 - ext3 /dev/root rw,errors=continue
1690 (1)(2)(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
1692 (1) mount ID: unique identifier of the mount (may be reused after umount)
1693 (2) parent ID: ID of parent (or of self for the top of the mount tree)
1694 (3) major:minor: value of st_dev for files on filesystem
1695 (4) root: root of the mount within the filesystem
1696 (5) mount point: mount point relative to the process's root
1697 (6) mount options: per mount options
1698 (7) optional fields: zero or more fields of the form "tag[:value]"
1699 (8) separator: marks the end of the optional fields
1700 (9) filesystem type: name of filesystem of the form "type[.subtype]"
1701 (10) mount source: filesystem specific information or "none"
1702 (11) super options: per super block options
1704 Parsers should ignore all unrecognised optional fields. Currently the
1705 possible optional fields are:
1707 shared:X mount is shared in peer group X
1708 master:X mount is slave to peer group X
1709 propagate_from:X mount is slave and receives propagation from peer group X (*)
1710 unbindable mount is unbindable
1712 (*) X is the closest dominant peer group under the process's root. If
1713 X is the immediate master of the mount, or if there's no dominant peer
1714 group under the same root, then only the "master:X" field is present
1715 and not the "propagate_from:X" field.
1717 For more information on mount propagation see:
1719 Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt
1722 3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
1723 --------------------------------------------------------
1724 These files provide a method to access a tasks comm value. It also allows for
1725 a task to set its own or one of its thread siblings comm value. The comm value
1726 is limited in size compared to the cmdline value, so writing anything longer
1727 then the kernel's TASK_COMM_LEN (currently 16 chars) will result in a truncated
1731 3.7 /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/children - Information about task children
1732 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
1733 This file provides a fast way to retrieve first level children pids
1734 of a task pointed by <pid>/<tid> pair. The format is a space separated
1737 Note the "first level" here -- if a child has own children they will
1738 not be listed here, one needs to read /proc/<children-pid>/task/<tid>/children
1739 to obtain the descendants.
1741 Since this interface is intended to be fast and cheap it doesn't
1742 guarantee to provide precise results and some children might be
1743 skipped, especially if they've exited right after we printed their
1744 pids, so one need to either stop or freeze processes being inspected
1745 if precise results are needed.
1748 3.8 /proc/<pid>/fdinfo/<fd> - Information about opened file
1749 ---------------------------------------------------------------
1750 This file provides information associated with an opened file. The regular
1751 files have at least three fields -- 'pos', 'flags' and mnt_id. The 'pos'
1752 represents the current offset of the opened file in decimal form [see lseek(2)
1753 for details], 'flags' denotes the octal O_xxx mask the file has been
1754 created with [see open(2) for details] and 'mnt_id' represents mount ID of
1755 the file system containing the opened file [see 3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo
1764 All locks associated with a file descriptor are shown in its fdinfo too.
1766 lock: 1: FLOCK ADVISORY WRITE 359 00:13:11691 0 EOF
1768 The files such as eventfd, fsnotify, signalfd, epoll among the regular pos/flags
1769 pair provide additional information particular to the objects they represent.
1778 where 'eventfd-count' is hex value of a counter.
1785 sigmask: 0000000000000200
1787 where 'sigmask' is hex value of the signal mask associated
1795 tfd: 5 events: 1d data: ffffffffffffffff pos:0 ino:61af sdev:7
1797 where 'tfd' is a target file descriptor number in decimal form,
1798 'events' is events mask being watched and the 'data' is data
1799 associated with a target [see epoll(7) for more details].
1801 The 'pos' is current offset of the target file in decimal form
1802 [see lseek(2)], 'ino' and 'sdev' are inode and device numbers
1803 where target file resides, all in hex format.
1807 For inotify files the format is the following
1811 inotify wd:3 ino:9e7e sdev:800013 mask:800afce ignored_mask:0 fhandle-bytes:8 fhandle-type:1 f_handle:7e9e0000640d1b6d
1813 where 'wd' is a watch descriptor in decimal form, ie a target file
1814 descriptor number, 'ino' and 'sdev' are inode and device where the
1815 target file resides and the 'mask' is the mask of events, all in hex
1816 form [see inotify(7) for more details].
1818 If the kernel was built with exportfs support, the path to the target
1819 file is encoded as a file handle. The file handle is provided by three
1820 fields 'fhandle-bytes', 'fhandle-type' and 'f_handle', all in hex
1823 If the kernel is built without exportfs support the file handle won't be
1826 If there is no inotify mark attached yet the 'inotify' line will be omitted.
1828 For fanotify files the format is
1833 fanotify flags:10 event-flags:0
1834 fanotify mnt_id:12 mflags:40 mask:38 ignored_mask:40000003
1835 fanotify ino:4f969 sdev:800013 mflags:0 mask:3b ignored_mask:40000000 fhandle-bytes:8 fhandle-type:1 f_handle:69f90400c275b5b4
1837 where fanotify 'flags' and 'event-flags' are values used in fanotify_init
1838 call, 'mnt_id' is the mount point identifier, 'mflags' is the value of
1839 flags associated with mark which are tracked separately from events
1840 mask. 'ino', 'sdev' are target inode and device, 'mask' is the events
1841 mask and 'ignored_mask' is the mask of events which are to be ignored.
1842 All in hex format. Incorporation of 'mflags', 'mask' and 'ignored_mask'
1843 does provide information about flags and mask used in fanotify_mark
1844 call [see fsnotify manpage for details].
1846 While the first three lines are mandatory and always printed, the rest is
1847 optional and may be omitted if no marks created yet.
1858 it_value: (0, 49406829)
1861 where 'clockid' is the clock type and 'ticks' is the number of the timer expirations
1862 that have occurred [see timerfd_create(2) for details]. 'settime flags' are
1863 flags in octal form been used to setup the timer [see timerfd_settime(2) for
1864 details]. 'it_value' is remaining time until the timer exiration.
1865 'it_interval' is the interval for the timer. Note the timer might be set up
1866 with TIMER_ABSTIME option which will be shown in 'settime flags', but 'it_value'
1867 still exhibits timer's remaining time.
1869 3.9 /proc/<pid>/map_files - Information about memory mapped files
1870 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
1871 This directory contains symbolic links which represent memory mapped files
1872 the process is maintaining. Example output:
1874 | lr-------- 1 root root 64 Jan 27 11:24 333c600000-333c620000 -> /usr/lib64/ld-2.18.so
1875 | lr-------- 1 root root 64 Jan 27 11:24 333c81f000-333c820000 -> /usr/lib64/ld-2.18.so
1876 | lr-------- 1 root root 64 Jan 27 11:24 333c820000-333c821000 -> /usr/lib64/ld-2.18.so
1878 | lr-------- 1 root root 64 Jan 27 11:24 35d0421000-35d0422000 -> /usr/lib64/libselinux.so.1
1879 | lr-------- 1 root root 64 Jan 27 11:24 400000-41a000 -> /usr/bin/ls
1881 The name of a link represents the virtual memory bounds of a mapping, i.e.
1882 vm_area_struct::vm_start-vm_area_struct::vm_end.
1884 The main purpose of the map_files is to retrieve a set of memory mapped
1885 files in a fast way instead of parsing /proc/<pid>/maps or
1886 /proc/<pid>/smaps, both of which contain many more records. At the same
1887 time one can open(2) mappings from the listings of two processes and
1888 comparing their inode numbers to figure out which anonymous memory areas
1889 are actually shared.
1891 3.10 /proc/<pid>/timerslack_ns - Task timerslack value
1892 ---------------------------------------------------------
1893 This file provides the value of the task's timerslack value in nanoseconds.
1894 This value specifies a amount of time that normal timers may be deferred
1895 in order to coalesce timers and avoid unnecessary wakeups.
1897 This allows a task's interactivity vs power consumption trade off to be
1900 Writing 0 to the file will set the tasks timerslack to the default value.
1902 Valid values are from 0 - ULLONG_MAX
1904 An application setting the value must have PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH_FSCREDS level
1905 permissions on the task specified to change its timerslack_ns value.
1907 3.11 /proc/<pid>/patch_state - Livepatch patch operation state
1908 -----------------------------------------------------------------
1909 When CONFIG_LIVEPATCH is enabled, this file displays the value of the
1910 patch state for the task.
1912 A value of '-1' indicates that no patch is in transition.
1914 A value of '0' indicates that a patch is in transition and the task is
1915 unpatched. If the patch is being enabled, then the task hasn't been
1916 patched yet. If the patch is being disabled, then the task has already
1919 A value of '1' indicates that a patch is in transition and the task is
1920 patched. If the patch is being enabled, then the task has already been
1921 patched. If the patch is being disabled, then the task hasn't been
1925 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1927 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1930 ---------------------
1932 The following mount options are supported:
1934 hidepid= Set /proc/<pid>/ access mode.
1935 gid= Set the group authorized to learn processes information.
1937 hidepid=0 means classic mode - everybody may access all /proc/<pid>/ directories
1940 hidepid=1 means users may not access any /proc/<pid>/ directories but their
1941 own. Sensitive files like cmdline, sched*, status are now protected against
1942 other users. This makes it impossible to learn whether any user runs
1943 specific program (given the program doesn't reveal itself by its behaviour).
1944 As an additional bonus, as /proc/<pid>/cmdline is unaccessible for other users,
1945 poorly written programs passing sensitive information via program arguments are
1946 now protected against local eavesdroppers.
1948 hidepid=2 means hidepid=1 plus all /proc/<pid>/ will be fully invisible to other
1949 users. It doesn't mean that it hides a fact whether a process with a specific
1950 pid value exists (it can be learned by other means, e.g. by "kill -0 $PID"),
1951 but it hides process' uid and gid, which may be learned by stat()'ing
1952 /proc/<pid>/ otherwise. It greatly complicates an intruder's task of gathering
1953 information about running processes, whether some daemon runs with elevated
1954 privileges, whether other user runs some sensitive program, whether other users
1955 run any program at all, etc.
1957 gid= defines a group authorized to learn processes information otherwise
1958 prohibited by hidepid=. If you use some daemon like identd which needs to learn
1959 information about processes information, just add identd to this group.
projects / GitHub / moto-9609 / android_kernel_motorola_exynos9610.git / blob