cpuset: hotplug documentation fix
[GitHub/mt8127/android_kernel_alcatel_ttab.git] / Documentation / filesystems / proc.txt
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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>
6
72.4.x update Jorge Nerin <comandante@zaralinux.com> November 14 2000
8------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9Version 1.3 Kernel version 2.2.12
10 Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4
11------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12
13Table of Contents
14-----------------
15
16 0 Preface
17 0.1 Introduction/Credits
18 0.2 Legal Stuff
19
20 1 Collecting System Information
21 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
22 1.2 Kernel data
23 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
24 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
25 1.5 SCSI info
26 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
27 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
28 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
29
30 2 Modifying System Parameters
31 2.1 /proc/sys/fs - File system data
32 2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats
33 2.3 /proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters
34 2.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem
35 2.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters
36 2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls
37 2.7 /proc/sys/net - Networking stuff
38 2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings
39 2.9 Appletalk
40 2.10 IPX
41 2.11 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem
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42 2.12 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
43 2.13 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
f9c99463 44 2.14 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
bb90110d 45 2.15 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
2d4d4864 46 2.16 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
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47
48------------------------------------------------------------------------------
49Preface
50------------------------------------------------------------------------------
51
520.1 Introduction/Credits
53------------------------
54
55This documentation is part of a soon (or so we hope) to be released book on
56the SuSE Linux distribution. As there is no complete documentation for the
57/proc file system and we've used many freely available sources to write these
58chapters, it seems only fair to give the work back to the Linux community.
59This work is based on the 2.2.* kernel version and the upcoming 2.4.*. I'm
60afraid it's still far from complete, but we hope it will be useful. As far as
61we know, it is the first 'all-in-one' document about the /proc file system. It
62is focused on the Intel x86 hardware, so if you are looking for PPC, ARM,
63SPARC, AXP, etc., features, you probably won't find what you are looking for.
64It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols - sorry. But
65additions and patches are welcome and will be added to this document if you
66mail them to Bodo.
67
68We'd like to thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of
69other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a
70special thank you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily
71to create this document, as well as the additional information he provided.
72Thanks to everybody else who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel
73and helped create a great piece of software... :)
74
75If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to
76contact Bodo Bauer at bb@ricochet.net. We'll be happy to add them to this
77document.
78
79The latest version of this document is available online at
80http://skaro.nightcrawler.com/~bb/Docs/Proc as HTML version.
81
82If the above direction does not works for you, ypu could try the kernel
83mailing list at linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org and/or try to reach me at
84comandante@zaralinux.com.
85
860.2 Legal Stuff
87---------------
88
89We don't guarantee the correctness of this document, and if you come to us
90complaining about how you screwed up your system because of incorrect
91documentation, we won't feel responsible...
92
93------------------------------------------------------------------------------
94CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION
95------------------------------------------------------------------------------
96
97------------------------------------------------------------------------------
98In This Chapter
99------------------------------------------------------------------------------
100* Investigating the properties of the pseudo file system /proc and its
101 ability to provide information on the running Linux system
102* Examining /proc's structure
103* Uncovering various information about the kernel and the processes running
104 on the system
105------------------------------------------------------------------------------
106
107
108The proc file system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the
109kernel. It can be used to obtain information about the system and to change
110certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl).
111
112First, we'll take a look at the read-only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we
113show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings.
114
1151.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
116-----------------------------------
117
118The directory /proc contains (among other things) one subdirectory for each
119process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID).
120
121The link self points to the process reading the file system. Each process
122subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1-1.
123
124
125Table 1-1: Process specific entries in /proc
126..............................................................................
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127 File Content
128 clear_refs Clears page referenced bits shown in smaps output
129 cmdline Command line arguments
130 cpu Current and last cpu in which it was executed (2.4)(smp)
131 cwd Link to the current working directory
132 environ Values of environment variables
133 exe Link to the executable of this process
134 fd Directory, which contains all file descriptors
135 maps Memory maps to executables and library files (2.4)
136 mem Memory held by this process
137 root Link to the root directory of this process
138 stat Process status
139 statm Process memory status information
140 status Process status in human readable form
141 wchan If CONFIG_KALLSYMS is set, a pre-decoded wchan
142 smaps Extension based on maps, the rss size for each mapped file
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143..............................................................................
144
145For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is
146read the file /proc/PID/status:
147
148 >cat /proc/self/status
149 Name: cat
150 State: R (running)
151 Pid: 5452
152 PPid: 743
153 TracerPid: 0 (2.4)
154 Uid: 501 501 501 501
155 Gid: 100 100 100 100
156 Groups: 100 14 16
157 VmSize: 1112 kB
158 VmLck: 0 kB
159 VmRSS: 348 kB
160 VmData: 24 kB
161 VmStk: 12 kB
162 VmExe: 8 kB
163 VmLib: 1044 kB
164 SigPnd: 0000000000000000
165 SigBlk: 0000000000000000
166 SigIgn: 0000000000000000
167 SigCgt: 0000000000000000
168 CapInh: 00000000fffffeff
169 CapPrm: 0000000000000000
170 CapEff: 0000000000000000
171
172
173This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
174the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its
175information. The statm file contains more detailed information about the
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176process memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-2. The stat
177file contains details information about the process itself. Its fields are
178explained in Table 1-3.
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179
180
181Table 1-2: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3)
182..............................................................................
183 Field Content
184 size total program size (pages) (same as VmSize in status)
185 resident size of memory portions (pages) (same as VmRSS in status)
186 shared number of pages that are shared (i.e. backed by a file)
187 trs number of pages that are 'code' (not including libs; broken,
188 includes data segment)
189 lrs number of pages of library (always 0 on 2.6)
190 drs number of pages of data/stack (including libs; broken,
191 includes library text)
192 dt number of dirty pages (always 0 on 2.6)
193..............................................................................
194
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195
196Table 1-3: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.22-rc3)
197..............................................................................
198 Field Content
199 pid process id
200 tcomm filename of the executable
201 state state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an
202 uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped)
203 ppid process id of the parent process
204 pgrp pgrp of the process
205 sid session id
206 tty_nr tty the process uses
207 tty_pgrp pgrp of the tty
208 flags task flags
209 min_flt number of minor faults
210 cmin_flt number of minor faults with child's
211 maj_flt number of major faults
212 cmaj_flt number of major faults with child's
213 utime user mode jiffies
214 stime kernel mode jiffies
215 cutime user mode jiffies with child's
216 cstime kernel mode jiffies with child's
217 priority priority level
218 nice nice level
219 num_threads number of threads
2e01e00e 220 it_real_value (obsolete, always 0)
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221 start_time time the process started after system boot
222 vsize virtual memory size
223 rss resident set memory size
224 rsslim current limit in bytes on the rss
225 start_code address above which program text can run
226 end_code address below which program text can run
227 start_stack address of the start of the stack
228 esp current value of ESP
229 eip current value of EIP
230 pending bitmap of pending signals (obsolete)
231 blocked bitmap of blocked signals (obsolete)
232 sigign bitmap of ignored signals (obsolete)
233 sigcatch bitmap of catched signals (obsolete)
234 wchan address where process went to sleep
235 0 (place holder)
236 0 (place holder)
237 exit_signal signal to send to parent thread on exit
238 task_cpu which CPU the task is scheduled on
239 rt_priority realtime priority
240 policy scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler)
241 blkio_ticks time spent waiting for block IO
242..............................................................................
243
244
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2451.2 Kernel data
246---------------
247
248Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about
249the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
18d96779 250/proc and are listed in Table 1-4. Not all of these will be present in your
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251system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
252files are there, and which are missing.
253
18d96779 254Table 1-4: Kernel info in /proc
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255..............................................................................
256 File Content
257 apm Advanced power management info
258 buddyinfo Kernel memory allocator information (see text) (2.5)
259 bus Directory containing bus specific information
260 cmdline Kernel command line
261 cpuinfo Info about the CPU
262 devices Available devices (block and character)
263 dma Used DMS channels
264 filesystems Supported filesystems
265 driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
266 execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4)
267 fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4)
268 fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4)
269 ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem
270 interrupts Interrupt usage
271 iomem Memory map (2.4)
272 ioports I/O port usage
273 irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?)
274 isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4)
275 kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))
276 kmsg Kernel messages
277 ksyms Kernel symbol table
278 loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes
279 locks Kernel locks
280 meminfo Memory info
281 misc Miscellaneous
282 modules List of loaded modules
283 mounts Mounted filesystems
284 net Networking info (see text)
285 partitions Table of partitions known to the system
8b60756a 286 pci Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/,
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287 decoupled by lspci (2.4)
288 rtc Real time clock
289 scsi SCSI info (see text)
290 slabinfo Slab pool info
291 stat Overall statistics
292 swaps Swap space utilization
293 sys See chapter 2
294 sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4)
295 tty Info of tty drivers
296 uptime System uptime
297 version Kernel version
298 video bttv info of video resources (2.4)
a47a126a 299 vmallocinfo Show vmalloced areas
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300..............................................................................
301
302You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what
303they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:
304
305 > cat /proc/interrupts
306 CPU0
307 0: 8728810 XT-PIC timer
308 1: 895 XT-PIC keyboard
309 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
310 3: 531695 XT-PIC aha152x
311 4: 2014133 XT-PIC serial
312 5: 44401 XT-PIC pcnet_cs
313 8: 2 XT-PIC rtc
314 11: 8 XT-PIC i82365
315 12: 182918 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
316 13: 1 XT-PIC fpu
317 14: 1232265 XT-PIC ide0
318 15: 7 XT-PIC ide1
319 NMI: 0
320
321In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
322output of a SMP machine):
323
324 > cat /proc/interrupts
325
326 CPU0 CPU1
327 0: 1243498 1214548 IO-APIC-edge timer
328 1: 8949 8958 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
329 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade
330 5: 11286 10161 IO-APIC-edge soundblaster
331 8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
332 9: 27422 27407 IO-APIC-edge 3c503
333 12: 113645 113873 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
334 13: 0 0 XT-PIC fpu
335 14: 22491 24012 IO-APIC-edge ide0
336 15: 2183 2415 IO-APIC-edge ide1
337 17: 30564 30414 IO-APIC-level eth0
338 18: 177 164 IO-APIC-level bttv
339 NMI: 2457961 2457959
340 LOC: 2457882 2457881
341 ERR: 2155
342
343NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI
344(Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups.
345
346LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU.
347
348ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that
349connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected,
350the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big
351problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ.
352
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353In 2.6.2* /proc/interrupts was expanded again. This time the goal was for
354/proc/interrupts to display every IRQ vector in use by the system, not
355just those considered 'most important'. The new vectors are:
356
357 THR -- interrupt raised when a machine check threshold counter
358 (typically counting ECC corrected errors of memory or cache) exceeds
359 a configurable threshold. Only available on some systems.
360
361 TRM -- a thermal event interrupt occurs when a temperature threshold
362 has been exceeded for the CPU. This interrupt may also be generated
363 when the temperature drops back to normal.
364
365 SPU -- a spurious interrupt is some interrupt that was raised then lowered
366 by some IO device before it could be fully processed by the APIC. Hence
367 the APIC sees the interrupt but does not know what device it came from.
368 For this case the APIC will generate the interrupt with a IRQ vector
369 of 0xff. This might also be generated by chipset bugs.
370
371 RES, CAL, TLB -- rescheduling, call and TLB flush interrupts are
372 sent from one CPU to another per the needs of the OS. Typically,
373 their statistics are used by kernel developers and interested users to
374 determine the occurance of interrupt of the given type.
375
376The above IRQ vectors are displayed only when relevent. For example,
377the threshold vector does not exist on x86_64 platforms. Others are
378suppressed when the system is a uniprocessor. As of this writing, only
379i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays.
380
381Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4.
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382It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
383IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
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384irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and two files; default_smp_affinity and
385prof_cpu_mask.
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386
387For example
388 > ls /proc/irq/
389 0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
18404756 390 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 default_smp_affinity
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391 > ls /proc/irq/0/
392 smp_affinity
393
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394smp_affinity is a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the
395IRQ, you can set it by doing:
1da177e4 396
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397 > echo 1 > /proc/irq/10/smp_affinity
398
399This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo
4005 which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
1da177e4 401
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402The contents of each smp_affinity file is the same by default:
403
404 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
405 ffffffff
1da177e4 406
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407The default_smp_affinity mask applies to all non-active IRQs, which are the
408IRQs which have not yet been allocated/activated, and hence which lack a
409/proc/irq/[0-9]* directory.
1da177e4 410
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411prof_cpu_mask specifies which CPUs are to be profiled by the system wide
412profiler. Default value is ffffffff (all cpus).
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413
414The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin
415between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
416more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the
417best choice for almost everyone.
418
419There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys.
420The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these
421directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the
422directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there
423only when networking support is present in the running kernel.
424
425The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level.
426Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2.
427Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers,
428directory cache, and so on).
429
430..............................................................................
431
432> cat /proc/buddyinfo
433
434Node 0, zone DMA 0 4 5 4 4 3 ...
435Node 0, zone Normal 1 0 0 1 101 8 ...
436Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 0 ...
437
438Memory fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a
439useful tool for helping diagnose these problems. Buddyinfo will give you a
440clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous
441allocation failed.
442
443Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are
444available. In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in
445ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE
446available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc...
447
448..............................................................................
449
450meminfo:
451
452Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory. This
453varies by architecture and compile options. The following is from a
45416GB PIII, which has highmem enabled. You may not have all of these fields.
455
456> cat /proc/meminfo
457
458
459MemTotal: 16344972 kB
460MemFree: 13634064 kB
461Buffers: 3656 kB
462Cached: 1195708 kB
463SwapCached: 0 kB
464Active: 891636 kB
465Inactive: 1077224 kB
466HighTotal: 15597528 kB
467HighFree: 13629632 kB
468LowTotal: 747444 kB
469LowFree: 4432 kB
470SwapTotal: 0 kB
471SwapFree: 0 kB
472Dirty: 968 kB
473Writeback: 0 kB
b88473f7 474AnonPages: 861800 kB
1da177e4 475Mapped: 280372 kB
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476Slab: 284364 kB
477SReclaimable: 159856 kB
478SUnreclaim: 124508 kB
479PageTables: 24448 kB
480NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
481Bounce: 0 kB
482WritebackTmp: 0 kB
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483CommitLimit: 7669796 kB
484Committed_AS: 100056 kB
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485VmallocTotal: 112216 kB
486VmallocUsed: 428 kB
487VmallocChunk: 111088 kB
488
489 MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved
490 bits and the kernel binary code)
491 MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree
492 Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks
493 shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so)
494 Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the
495 pagecache). Doesn't include SwapCached
496 SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but
497 still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it
498 doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already
499 in the swapfile. This saves I/O)
500 Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not
501 reclaimed unless absolutely necessary.
502 Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used. It is more
503 eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes
504 HighTotal:
505 HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory
506 Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or
507 for the pagecache. The kernel must use tricks to access
508 this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem.
509 LowTotal:
510 LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that
3f6dee9b 511 highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the
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512 kernel's use for its own data structures. Among many
513 other things, it is where everything from the Slab is
514 allocated. Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem.
515 SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available
516 SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily
517 on the disk
518 Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk
519 Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk
b88473f7 520 AnonPages: Non-file backed pages mapped into userspace page tables
1da177e4 521 Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries
e82443c0 522 Slab: in-kernel data structures cache
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523SReclaimable: Part of Slab, that might be reclaimed, such as caches
524 SUnreclaim: Part of Slab, that cannot be reclaimed on memory pressure
525 PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page
526 tables.
527NFS_Unstable: NFS pages sent to the server, but not yet committed to stable
528 storage
529 Bounce: Memory used for block device "bounce buffers"
530WritebackTmp: Memory used by FUSE for temporary writeback buffers
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531 CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'),
532 this is the total amount of memory currently available to
533 be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to
534 if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in
535 'vm.overcommit_memory').
536 The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula:
537 CommitLimit = ('vm.overcommit_ratio' * Physical RAM) + Swap
538 For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G
539 of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would
540 yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G.
541 For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation
542 in vm/overcommit-accounting.
543Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system.
544 The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which
545 has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been
546 "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G
547 of memory, but only touches 300M of it will only show up
548 as using 300M of memory even if it has the address space
549 allocated for the entire 1G. This 1G is memory which has
550 been "committed" to by the VM and can be used at any time
551 by the allocating application. With strict overcommit
552 enabled on the system (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'),
553 allocations which would exceed the CommitLimit (detailed
554 above) will not be permitted. This is useful if one needs
555 to guarantee that processes will not fail due to lack of
556 memory once that memory has been successfully allocated.
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557VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area
558 VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used
559VmallocChunk: largest contigious block of vmalloc area which is free
560
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561..............................................................................
562
563vmallocinfo:
564
565Provides information about vmalloced/vmaped areas. One line per area,
566containing the virtual address range of the area, size in bytes,
567caller information of the creator, and optional information depending
568on the kind of area :
569
570 pages=nr number of pages
571 phys=addr if a physical address was specified
572 ioremap I/O mapping (ioremap() and friends)
573 vmalloc vmalloc() area
574 vmap vmap()ed pages
575 user VM_USERMAP area
576 vpages buffer for pages pointers was vmalloced (huge area)
577 N<node>=nr (Only on NUMA kernels)
578 Number of pages allocated on memory node <node>
579
580> cat /proc/vmallocinfo
5810xffffc20000000000-0xffffc20000201000 2101248 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
582 /0x2c0 pages=512 vmalloc N0=128 N1=128 N2=128 N3=128
5830xffffc20000201000-0xffffc20000302000 1052672 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
584 /0x2c0 pages=256 vmalloc N0=64 N1=64 N2=64 N3=64
5850xffffc20000302000-0xffffc20000304000 8192 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
586 phys=7fee8000 ioremap
5870xffffc20000304000-0xffffc20000307000 12288 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
588 phys=7fee7000 ioremap
5890xffffc2000031d000-0xffffc2000031f000 8192 init_vdso_vars+0x112/0x210
5900xffffc2000031f000-0xffffc2000032b000 49152 cramfs_uncompress_init+0x2e ...
591 /0x80 pages=11 vmalloc N0=3 N1=3 N2=2 N3=3
5920xffffc2000033a000-0xffffc2000033d000 12288 sys_swapon+0x640/0xac0 ...
593 pages=2 vmalloc N1=2
5940xffffc20000347000-0xffffc2000034c000 20480 xt_alloc_table_info+0xfe ...
595 /0x130 [x_tables] pages=4 vmalloc N0=4
5960xffffffffa0000000-0xffffffffa000f000 61440 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
597 pages=14 vmalloc N2=14
5980xffffffffa000f000-0xffffffffa0014000 20480 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
599 pages=4 vmalloc N1=4
6000xffffffffa0014000-0xffffffffa0017000 12288 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
601 pages=2 vmalloc N1=2
6020xffffffffa0017000-0xffffffffa0022000 45056 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
603 pages=10 vmalloc N0=10
1da177e4
LT
604
6051.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
606----------------------------
607
608The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which
609the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the
610file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory
611in the controller specific subtree.
612
613The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the
614IDE devices:
615
616 > cat /proc/ide/drivers
617 ide-cdrom version 4.53
618 ide-disk version 1.08
619
620More detailed information can be found in the controller specific
621subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these
18d96779 622directories contains the files shown in table 1-5.
1da177e4
LT
623
624
18d96779 625Table 1-5: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide?
1da177e4
LT
626..............................................................................
627 File Content
628 channel IDE channel (0 or 1)
629 config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)
630 mate Mate name
631 model Type/Chipset of IDE controller
632..............................................................................
633
634Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the
18d96779 635controllers directory. The files listed in table 1-6 are contained in these
1da177e4
LT
636directories.
637
638
18d96779 639Table 1-6: IDE device information
1da177e4
LT
640..............................................................................
641 File Content
642 cache The cache
643 capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)
644 driver driver and version
645 geometry physical and logical geometry
646 identify device identify block
647 media media type
648 model device identifier
649 settings device setup
650 smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds
651 smart_values IDE disk management values
652..............................................................................
653
654The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of
655the drive parameters:
656
657 # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings
658 name value min max mode
659 ---- ----- --- --- ----
660 bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw
661 bios_head 255 0 255 rw
662 bios_sect 63 0 63 rw
663 breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw
664 bswap 0 0 1 r
665 file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw
666 io_32bit 0 0 3 rw
667 keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
668 max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw
669 multcount 0 0 8 rw
670 nice1 1 0 1 rw
671 nowerr 0 0 1 rw
672 pio_mode write-only 0 255 w
673 slow 0 0 1 rw
674 unmaskirq 0 0 1 rw
675 using_dma 0 0 1 rw
676
677
6781.4 Networking info in /proc/net
679--------------------------------
680
681The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1-6 shows the
682additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to
683support this. Table 1-7 lists the files and their meaning.
684
685
686Table 1-6: IPv6 info in /proc/net
687..............................................................................
688 File Content
689 udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6)
690 tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6)
691 raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6)
692 igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)
693 if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses
694 ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6
695 rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics
696 sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6)
697 snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6)
698..............................................................................
699
700
701Table 1-7: Network info in /proc/net
702..............................................................................
703 File Content
704 arp Kernel ARP table
705 dev network devices with statistics
706 dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too
707 (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound
708 addresses).
709 dev_stat network device status
710 ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage
711 ip_fwnames Firewall chain names
712 ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables
713 ip_masquerade Major masquerading table
714 netstat Network statistics
715 raw raw device statistics
716 route Kernel routing table
717 rpc Directory containing rpc info
718 rt_cache Routing cache
719 snmp SNMP data
720 sockstat Socket statistics
721 tcp TCP sockets
722 tr_rif Token ring RIF routing table
723 udp UDP sockets
724 unix UNIX domain sockets
725 wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)
726 igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined
727 psched Global packet scheduler parameters.
728 netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets
729 ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces
730 ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache
731..............................................................................
732
733You can use this information to see which network devices are available in
734your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices:
735
736 > cat /proc/net/dev
737 Inter-|Receive |[...
738 face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[...
739 lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...
740 ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [...
741 eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [...
742
743 ...] Transmit
744 ...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
745 ...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0
746 ...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0
747 ...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0
748
749In addition, each Channel Bond interface has it's own directory. For
750example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/.
751It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the
752current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how
753many times the slaves link has failed.
754
7551.5 SCSI info
756-------------
757
758If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory
759named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list
760of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi:
761
762 >cat /proc/scsi/scsi
763 Attached devices:
764 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
765 Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0
766 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
767 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
768 Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S Rev: 1.04
769 Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
770
771
772The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in
773the system. These files contain information about the controller, including
774the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is
775dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec
776AHA-2940 SCSI adapter:
777
778 > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0
779
780 Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4
781 Compile Options:
782 TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
783 AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled
784 AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5
785 Adapter Configuration:
786 SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter
787 Ultra Wide Controller
788 PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000
789 Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
790 Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
791 IRQ: 10
792 SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,
793 Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
794 Interrupts: 160328
795 BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6
796 Adapter Control Word: 0x005b
797 Extended Translation: Enabled
798 Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff
799 Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001
800 Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
801 Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
802 Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
803 Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:
804 {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
805 Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:
806 {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
807 Statistics:
808 (scsi0:0:0:0)
809 Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8
810 Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)
811 Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)
812 (scsi0:0:6:0)
813 Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
814 Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)
815 Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)
816
817
8181.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
819---------------------------------------
820
821The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of
822your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port
823number (0,1,2,...).
824
825These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-8.
826
827
828Table 1-8: Files in /proc/parport
829..............................................................................
830 File Content
831 autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired.
832 devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the
833 name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear
834 against any).
835 hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.
836 irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate
837 file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ
838 number or none).
839..............................................................................
840
8411.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
842-------------------------
843
844Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the
845directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in
846this directory, as shown in Table 1-9.
847
848
849Table 1-9: Files in /proc/tty
850..............................................................................
851 File Content
852 drivers list of drivers and their usage
853 ldiscs registered line disciplines
854 driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines
855..............................................................................
856
857To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file
858/proc/tty/drivers:
859
860 > cat /proc/tty/drivers
861 pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0-255 pty:slave
862 pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0-255 pty:master
863 pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0-255 pty:slave
864 pty_master /dev/pty 2 0-255 pty:master
865 serial /dev/cua 5 64-67 serial:callout
866 serial /dev/ttyS 4 64-67 serial
867 /dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster
868 /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system
869 /dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console
870 /dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty
871 unknown /dev/tty 4 1-63 console
872
873
8741.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
875-------------------------------------------------
876
877Various pieces of information about kernel activity are available in the
878/proc/stat file. All of the numbers reported in this file are aggregates
879since the system first booted. For a quick look, simply cat the file:
880
881 > cat /proc/stat
b68f2c3a
LC
882 cpu 2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 0
883 cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 0
884 cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 0
1da177e4
LT
885 intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...]
886 ctxt 1990473
887 btime 1062191376
888 processes 2915
889 procs_running 1
890 procs_blocked 0
891
892The very first "cpu" line aggregates the numbers in all of the other "cpuN"
893lines. These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing
894different kinds of work. Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a
895second). The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right:
896
897- user: normal processes executing in user mode
898- nice: niced processes executing in user mode
899- system: processes executing in kernel mode
900- idle: twiddling thumbs
901- iowait: waiting for I/O to complete
902- irq: servicing interrupts
903- softirq: servicing softirqs
b68f2c3a 904- steal: involuntary wait
1da177e4
LT
905
906The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts serviced since boot time, for each
907of the possible system interrupts. The first column is the total of all
908interrupts serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
909interrupt.
910
911The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs.
912
913The "btime" line gives the time at which the system booted, in seconds since
914the Unix epoch.
915
916The "processes" line gives the number of processes and threads created, which
917includes (but is not limited to) those created by calls to the fork() and
918clone() system calls.
919
920The "procs_running" line gives the number of processes currently running on
921CPUs.
922
923The "procs_blocked" line gives the number of processes currently blocked,
924waiting for I/O to complete.
925
c9de560d
AT
9261.9 Ext4 file system parameters
927------------------------------
928Ext4 file system have one directory per partition under /proc/fs/ext4/
929# ls /proc/fs/ext4/hdc/
930group_prealloc max_to_scan mb_groups mb_history min_to_scan order2_req
931stats stream_req
932
933mb_groups:
d9195881 934This file gives the details of multiblock allocator buddy cache of free blocks
c9de560d
AT
935
936mb_history:
937Multiblock allocation history.
938
939stats:
940This file indicate whether the multiblock allocator should start collecting
941statistics. The statistics are shown during unmount
942
943group_prealloc:
944The multiblock allocator normalize the block allocation request to
945group_prealloc filesystem blocks if we don't have strip value set.
946The stripe value can be specified at mount time or during mke2fs.
947
948max_to_scan:
949How long multiblock allocator can look for a best extent (in found extents)
950
951min_to_scan:
952How long multiblock allocator must look for a best extent
953
954order2_req:
955Multiblock allocator use 2^N search using buddies only for requests greater
956than or equal to order2_req. The request size is specfied in file system
957blocks. A value of 2 indicate only if the requests are greater than or equal
958to 4 blocks.
959
960stream_req:
961Files smaller than stream_req are served by the stream allocator, whose
962purpose is to pack requests as close each to other as possible to
963produce smooth I/O traffic. Avalue of 16 indicate that file smaller than 16
964filesystem block size will use group based preallocation.
1da177e4
LT
965
966------------------------------------------------------------------------------
967Summary
968------------------------------------------------------------------------------
969The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only
970allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status
971by reading files in the hierarchy.
972
973The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes
974it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data.
975------------------------------------------------------------------------------
976
977------------------------------------------------------------------------------
978CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS
979------------------------------------------------------------------------------
980
981------------------------------------------------------------------------------
982In This Chapter
983------------------------------------------------------------------------------
984* Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys
985* Exploring the files which modify certain parameters
986* Review of the /proc/sys file tree
987------------------------------------------------------------------------------
988
989
990A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only
991a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the
992kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system,
993but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a
994production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that
995everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to
996reboot the machine once an error has been made.
997
998To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is
999given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do
1000this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your
1001system boots.
1002
1003The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and
1004general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files
1005can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both
1006documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be
1007very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may
1008change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt
1009review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation.
1010This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2
1011kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel.
1012
10132.1 /proc/sys/fs - File system data
1014-----------------------------------
1015
1016This subdirectory contains specific file system, file handle, inode, dentry
1017and quota information.
1018
1019Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/fs:
1020
1021dentry-state
1022------------
1023
1024Status of the directory cache. Since directory entries are dynamically
1025allocated and deallocated, this file indicates the current status. It holds
1026six values, in which the last two are not used and are always zero. The others
1027are listed in table 2-1.
1028
1029
1030Table 2-1: Status files of the directory cache
1031..............................................................................
1032 File Content
1033 nr_dentry Almost always zero
1034 nr_unused Number of unused cache entries
1035 age_limit
1036 in seconds after the entry may be reclaimed, when memory is short
1037 want_pages internally
1038..............................................................................
1039
1040dquot-nr and dquot-max
1041----------------------
1042
1043The file dquot-max shows the maximum number of cached disk quota entries.
1044
1045The file dquot-nr shows the number of allocated disk quota entries and the
1046number of free disk quota entries.
1047
1048If the number of available cached disk quotas is very low and you have a large
1049number of simultaneous system users, you might want to raise the limit.
1050
1051file-nr and file-max
1052--------------------
1053
1054The kernel allocates file handles dynamically, but doesn't free them again at
1055this time.
1056
1057The value in file-max denotes the maximum number of file handles that the
1058Linux kernel will allocate. When you get a lot of error messages about running
1059out of file handles, you might want to raise this limit. The default value is
106010% of RAM in kilobytes. To change it, just write the new number into the
1061file:
1062
1063 # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
1064 4096
1065 # echo 8192 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
1066 # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
1067 8192
1068
1069
1070This method of revision is useful for all customizable parameters of the
1071kernel - simply echo the new value to the corresponding file.
1072
1073Historically, the three values in file-nr denoted the number of allocated file
1074handles, the number of allocated but unused file handles, and the maximum
1075number of file handles. Linux 2.6 always reports 0 as the number of free file
1076handles -- this is not an error, it just means that the number of allocated
1077file handles exactly matches the number of used file handles.
1078
1079Attempts to allocate more file descriptors than file-max are reported with
1080printk, look for "VFS: file-max limit <number> reached".
1081
1082inode-state and inode-nr
1083------------------------
1084
1085The file inode-nr contains the first two items from inode-state, so we'll skip
1086to that file...
1087
1088inode-state contains two actual numbers and five dummy values. The numbers
1089are nr_inodes and nr_free_inodes (in order of appearance).
1090
1091nr_inodes
1092~~~~~~~~~
1093
1094Denotes the number of inodes the system has allocated. This number will
1095grow and shrink dynamically.
1096
9cfe015a
ED
1097nr_open
1098-------
1099
1100Denotes the maximum number of file-handles a process can
1101allocate. Default value is 1024*1024 (1048576) which should be
1102enough for most machines. Actual limit depends on RLIMIT_NOFILE
1103resource limit.
1104
1da177e4
LT
1105nr_free_inodes
1106--------------
1107
1108Represents the number of free inodes. Ie. The number of inuse inodes is
1109(nr_inodes - nr_free_inodes).
1110
1da177e4
LT
1111aio-nr and aio-max-nr
1112---------------------
1113
1114aio-nr is the running total of the number of events specified on the
1115io_setup system call for all currently active aio contexts. If aio-nr
1116reaches aio-max-nr then io_setup will fail with EAGAIN. Note that
1117raising aio-max-nr does not result in the pre-allocation or re-sizing
1118of any kernel data structures.
1119
11202.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats
1121-----------------------------------------------------------
1122
1123Besides these files, there is the subdirectory /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. This
1124handles the kernel support for miscellaneous binary formats.
1125
1126Binfmt_misc provides the ability to register additional binary formats to the
1127Kernel without compiling an additional module/kernel. Therefore, binfmt_misc
1128needs to know magic numbers at the beginning or the filename extension of the
1129binary.
1130
1131It works by maintaining a linked list of structs that contain a description of
1132a binary format, including a magic with size (or the filename extension),
1133offset and mask, and the interpreter name. On request it invokes the given
1134interpreter with the original program as argument, as binfmt_java and
1135binfmt_em86 and binfmt_mz do. Since binfmt_misc does not define any default
1136binary-formats, you have to register an additional binary-format.
1137
1138There are two general files in binfmt_misc and one file per registered format.
1139The two general files are register and status.
1140
1141Registering a new binary format
1142-------------------------------
1143
1144To register a new binary format you have to issue the command
1145
1146 echo :name:type:offset:magic:mask:interpreter: > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
1147
1148
1149
1150with appropriate name (the name for the /proc-dir entry), offset (defaults to
11510, if omitted), magic, mask (which can be omitted, defaults to all 0xff) and
1152last but not least, the interpreter that is to be invoked (for example and
1153testing /bin/echo). Type can be M for usual magic matching or E for filename
1154extension matching (give extension in place of magic).
1155
1156Check or reset the status of the binary format handler
1157------------------------------------------------------
1158
1159If you do a cat on the file /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status, you will get the
1160current status (enabled/disabled) of binfmt_misc. Change the status by echoing
11610 (disables) or 1 (enables) or -1 (caution: this clears all previously
1162registered binary formats) to status. For example echo 0 > status to disable
1163binfmt_misc (temporarily).
1164
1165Status of a single handler
1166--------------------------
1167
1168Each registered handler has an entry in /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. These files
1169perform the same function as status, but their scope is limited to the actual
1170binary format. By cating this file, you also receive all related information
1171about the interpreter/magic of the binfmt.
1172
1173Example usage of binfmt_misc (emulate binfmt_java)
1174--------------------------------------------------
1175
1176 cd /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
1177 echo ':Java:M::\xca\xfe\xba\xbe::/usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper:' > register
1178 echo ':HTML:E::html::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register
1179 echo ':Applet:M::<!--applet::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register
1180 echo ':DEXE:M::\x0eDEX::/usr/bin/dosexec:' > register
1181
1182
1183These four lines add support for Java executables and Java applets (like
1184binfmt_java, additionally recognizing the .html extension with no need to put
1185<!--applet> to every applet file). You have to install the JDK and the
1186shell-script /usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper too. It works around the
1187brokenness of the Java filename handling. To add a Java binary, just create a
1188link to the class-file somewhere in the path.
1189
11902.3 /proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters
1191------------------------------------------------
1192
1193This directory reflects general kernel behaviors. As I've said before, the
1194contents depend on your configuration. Here you'll find the most important
1195files, along with descriptions of what they mean and how to use them.
1196
1197acct
1198----
1199
1200The file contains three values; highwater, lowwater, and frequency.
1201
1202It exists only when BSD-style process accounting is enabled. These values
1203control its behavior. If the free space on the file system where the log lives
1204goes below lowwater percentage, accounting suspends. If it goes above
1205highwater percentage, accounting resumes. Frequency determines how often you
1206check the amount of free space (value is in seconds). Default settings are: 4,
12072, and 30. That is, suspend accounting if there is less than 2 percent free;
1208resume it if we have a value of 3 or more percent; consider information about
1209the amount of free space valid for 30 seconds
1210
1211ctrl-alt-del
1212------------
1213
1214When the value in this file is 0, ctrl-alt-del is trapped and sent to the init
1215program to handle a graceful restart. However, when the value is greater that
1216zero, Linux's reaction to this key combination will be an immediate reboot,
1217without syncing its dirty buffers.
1218
1219[NOTE]
1220 When a program (like dosemu) has the keyboard in raw mode, the
1221 ctrl-alt-del is intercepted by the program before it ever reaches the
1222 kernel tty layer, and it is up to the program to decide what to do with
1223 it.
1224
1225domainname and hostname
1226-----------------------
1227
1228These files can be controlled to set the NIS domainname and hostname of your
1229box. For the classic darkstar.frop.org a simple:
1230
1231 # echo "darkstar" > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname
1232 # echo "frop.org" > /proc/sys/kernel/domainname
1233
1234
1235would suffice to set your hostname and NIS domainname.
1236
1237osrelease, ostype and version
1238-----------------------------
1239
1240The names make it pretty obvious what these fields contain:
1241
1242 > cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease
1243 2.2.12
1244
1245 > cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype
1246 Linux
1247
1248 > cat /proc/sys/kernel/version
1249 #4 Fri Oct 1 12:41:14 PDT 1999
1250
1251
1252The files osrelease and ostype should be clear enough. Version needs a little
1253more clarification. The #4 means that this is the 4th kernel built from this
1254source base and the date after it indicates the time the kernel was built. The
1255only way to tune these values is to rebuild the kernel.
1256
1257panic
1258-----
1259
1260The value in this file represents the number of seconds the kernel waits
1261before rebooting on a panic. When you use the software watchdog, the
1262recommended setting is 60. If set to 0, the auto reboot after a kernel panic
1263is disabled, which is the default setting.
1264
1265printk
1266------
1267
1268The four values in printk denote
1269* console_loglevel,
1270* default_message_loglevel,
1271* minimum_console_loglevel and
1272* default_console_loglevel
1273respectively.
1274
1275These values influence printk() behavior when printing or logging error
1276messages, which come from inside the kernel. See syslog(2) for more
1277information on the different log levels.
1278
1279console_loglevel
1280----------------
1281
1282Messages with a higher priority than this will be printed to the console.
1283
1284default_message_level
1285---------------------
1286
1287Messages without an explicit priority will be printed with this priority.
1288
1289minimum_console_loglevel
1290------------------------
1291
1292Minimum (highest) value to which the console_loglevel can be set.
1293
1294default_console_loglevel
1295------------------------
1296
1297Default value for console_loglevel.
1298
1299sg-big-buff
1300-----------
1301
1302This file shows the size of the generic SCSI (sg) buffer. At this point, you
1303can't tune it yet, but you can change it at compile time by editing
1304include/scsi/sg.h and changing the value of SG_BIG_BUFF.
1305
1306If you use a scanner with SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) you might want to set
1307this to a higher value. Refer to the SANE documentation on this issue.
1308
1309modprobe
1310--------
1311
1312The location where the modprobe binary is located. The kernel uses this
1313program to load modules on demand.
1314
1315unknown_nmi_panic
1316-----------------
1317
1318The value in this file affects behavior of handling NMI. When the value is
1319non-zero, unknown NMI is trapped and then panic occurs. At that time, kernel
1320debugging information is displayed on console.
1321
1322NMI switch that most IA32 servers have fires unknown NMI up, for example.
1323If a system hangs up, try pressing the NMI switch.
1324
e33e89ab
DZ
1325nmi_watchdog
1326------------
1327
1328Enables/Disables the NMI watchdog on x86 systems. When the value is non-zero
1329the NMI watchdog is enabled and will continuously test all online cpus to
1330determine whether or not they are still functioning properly.
1331
1332Because the NMI watchdog shares registers with oprofile, by disabling the NMI
1333watchdog, oprofile may have more registers to utilize.
1da177e4 1334
5096add8
KC
1335maps_protect
1336------------
1337
1338Enables/Disables the protection of the per-process proc entries "maps" and
1339"smaps". When enabled, the contents of these files are visible only to
1340readers that are allowed to ptrace() the given process.
1341
61e55d05
ND
1342msgmni
1343------
1344
1345Maximum number of message queue ids on the system.
1346This value scales to the amount of lowmem. It is automatically recomputed
1347upon memory add/remove or ipc namespace creation/removal.
1348When a value is written into this file, msgmni's value becomes fixed, i.e. it
1349is not recomputed anymore when one of the above events occurs.
1350Use auto_msgmni to change this behavior.
1351
1352auto_msgmni
1353-----------
1354
1355Enables/Disables automatic recomputing of msgmni upon memory add/remove or
1356upon ipc namespace creation/removal (see the msgmni description above).
1357Echoing "1" into this file enables msgmni automatic recomputing.
1358Echoing "0" turns it off.
1359auto_msgmni default value is 1.
1360
1da177e4
LT
1361
13622.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem
1363-----------------------------------------------
1364
1365The files in this directory can be used to tune the operation of the virtual
1366memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel.
1367
1368vfs_cache_pressure
1369------------------
1370
1371Controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for
1372caching of directory and inode objects.
1373
1374At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to
1375reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and
1376swapcache reclaim. Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer
1377to retain dentry and inode caches. Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100
1378causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes.
1379
1380dirty_background_ratio
1381----------------------
1382
1383Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which
1384the pdflush background writeback daemon will start writing out dirty data.
1385
1386dirty_ratio
1387-----------------
1388
1389Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which
1390a process which is generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty
1391data.
1392
1393dirty_writeback_centisecs
1394-------------------------
1395
1396The pdflush writeback daemons will periodically wake up and write `old' data
1397out to disk. This tunable expresses the interval between those wakeups, in
1398100'ths of a second.
1399
1400Setting this to zero disables periodic writeback altogether.
1401
1402dirty_expire_centisecs
1403----------------------
1404
1405This tunable is used to define when dirty data is old enough to be eligible
1406for writeout by the pdflush daemons. It is expressed in 100'ths of a second.
1407Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this interval will be
1408written out next time a pdflush daemon wakes up.
1409
195cf453
BG
1410highmem_is_dirtyable
1411--------------------
1412
1413Only present if CONFIG_HIGHMEM is set.
1414
1415This defaults to 0 (false), meaning that the ratios set above are calculated
1416as a percentage of lowmem only. This protects against excessive scanning
1417in page reclaim, swapping and general VM distress.
1418
1419Setting this to 1 can be useful on 32 bit machines where you want to make
1420random changes within an MMAPed file that is larger than your available
1421lowmem without causing large quantities of random IO. Is is safe if the
1422behavior of all programs running on the machine is known and memory will
1423not be otherwise stressed.
1424
1da177e4
LT
1425legacy_va_layout
1426----------------
1427
1428If non-zero, this sysctl disables the new 32-bit mmap mmap layout - the kernel
1429will use the legacy (2.4) layout for all processes.
1430
7786fa9a 1431lowmem_reserve_ratio
1da177e4
LT
1432---------------------
1433
1434For some specialised workloads on highmem machines it is dangerous for
1435the kernel to allow process memory to be allocated from the "lowmem"
1436zone. This is because that memory could then be pinned via the mlock()
1437system call, or by unavailability of swapspace.
1438
1439And on large highmem machines this lack of reclaimable lowmem memory
1440can be fatal.
1441
1442So the Linux page allocator has a mechanism which prevents allocations
1443which _could_ use highmem from using too much lowmem. This means that
1444a certain amount of lowmem is defended from the possibility of being
1445captured into pinned user memory.
1446
1447(The same argument applies to the old 16 megabyte ISA DMA region. This
1448mechanism will also defend that region from allocations which could use
1449highmem or lowmem).
1450
7786fa9a
YG
1451The `lowmem_reserve_ratio' tunable determines how aggressive the kernel is
1452in defending these lower zones.
1da177e4
LT
1453
1454If you have a machine which uses highmem or ISA DMA and your
1455applications are using mlock(), or if you are running with no swap then
7786fa9a
YG
1456you probably should change the lowmem_reserve_ratio setting.
1457
1458The lowmem_reserve_ratio is an array. You can see them by reading this file.
1459-
1460% cat /proc/sys/vm/lowmem_reserve_ratio
1461256 256 32
1462-
1463Note: # of this elements is one fewer than number of zones. Because the highest
1464 zone's value is not necessary for following calculation.
1465
1466But, these values are not used directly. The kernel calculates # of protection
1467pages for each zones from them. These are shown as array of protection pages
1468in /proc/zoneinfo like followings. (This is an example of x86-64 box).
1469Each zone has an array of protection pages like this.
1470
1471-
1472Node 0, zone DMA
1473 pages free 1355
1474 min 3
1475 low 3
1476 high 4
1477 :
1478 :
1479 numa_other 0
1480 protection: (0, 2004, 2004, 2004)
1481 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1482 pagesets
1483 cpu: 0 pcp: 0
1484 :
1485-
1486These protections are added to score to judge whether this zone should be used
1487for page allocation or should be reclaimed.
1488
1489In this example, if normal pages (index=2) are required to this DMA zone and
1490pages_high is used for watermark, the kernel judges this zone should not be
1491used because pages_free(1355) is smaller than watermark + protection[2]
1492(4 + 2004 = 2008). If this protection value is 0, this zone would be used for
1493normal page requirement. If requirement is DMA zone(index=0), protection[0]
1494(=0) is used.
1495
d9195881 1496zone[i]'s protection[j] is calculated by following expression.
7786fa9a
YG
1497
1498(i < j):
1499 zone[i]->protection[j]
1500 = (total sums of present_pages from zone[i+1] to zone[j] on the node)
1501 / lowmem_reserve_ratio[i];
1502(i = j):
1503 (should not be protected. = 0;
1504(i > j):
1505 (not necessary, but looks 0)
1506
1507The default values of lowmem_reserve_ratio[i] are
1508 256 (if zone[i] means DMA or DMA32 zone)
1509 32 (others).
1510As above expression, they are reciprocal number of ratio.
1511256 means 1/256. # of protection pages becomes about "0.39%" of total present
1512pages of higher zones on the node.
1513
1514If you would like to protect more pages, smaller values are effective.
1515The minimum value is 1 (1/1 -> 100%).
1da177e4
LT
1516
1517page-cluster
1518------------
1519
1520page-cluster controls the number of pages which are written to swap in
1521a single attempt. The swap I/O size.
1522
1523It is a logarithmic value - setting it to zero means "1 page", setting
1524it to 1 means "2 pages", setting it to 2 means "4 pages", etc.
1525
1526The default value is three (eight pages at a time). There may be some
1527small benefits in tuning this to a different value if your workload is
1528swap-intensive.
1529
1530overcommit_memory
1531-----------------
1532
af97c722
CE
1533Controls overcommit of system memory, possibly allowing processes
1534to allocate (but not use) more memory than is actually available.
1535
1536
15370 - Heuristic overcommit handling. Obvious overcommits of
1538 address space are refused. Used for a typical system. It
1539 ensures a seriously wild allocation fails while allowing
1540 overcommit to reduce swap usage. root is allowed to
53cb4726 1541 allocate slightly more memory in this mode. This is the
af97c722
CE
1542 default.
1543
15441 - Always overcommit. Appropriate for some scientific
1545 applications.
1546
15472 - Don't overcommit. The total address space commit
1548 for the system is not permitted to exceed swap plus a
1549 configurable percentage (default is 50) of physical RAM.
1550 Depending on the percentage you use, in most situations
1551 this means a process will not be killed while attempting
1552 to use already-allocated memory but will receive errors
1553 on memory allocation as appropriate.
1554
1555overcommit_ratio
1556----------------
1557
1558Percentage of physical memory size to include in overcommit calculations
1559(see above.)
1560
1561Memory allocation limit = swapspace + physmem * (overcommit_ratio / 100)
1562
1563 swapspace = total size of all swap areas
1564 physmem = size of physical memory in system
1da177e4
LT
1565
1566nr_hugepages and hugetlb_shm_group
1567----------------------------------
1568
1569nr_hugepages configures number of hugetlb page reserved for the system.
1570
1571hugetlb_shm_group contains group id that is allowed to create SysV shared
1572memory segment using hugetlb page.
1573
ed7ed365
MG
1574hugepages_treat_as_movable
1575--------------------------
1576
1577This parameter is only useful when kernelcore= is specified at boot time to
1578create ZONE_MOVABLE for pages that may be reclaimed or migrated. Huge pages
1579are not movable so are not normally allocated from ZONE_MOVABLE. A non-zero
1580value written to hugepages_treat_as_movable allows huge pages to be allocated
1581from ZONE_MOVABLE.
1582
1583Once enabled, the ZONE_MOVABLE is treated as an area of memory the huge
1584pages pool can easily grow or shrink within. Assuming that applications are
1585not running that mlock() a lot of memory, it is likely the huge pages pool
1586can grow to the size of ZONE_MOVABLE by repeatedly entering the desired value
1587into nr_hugepages and triggering page reclaim.
1588
1da177e4
LT
1589laptop_mode
1590-----------
1591
1592laptop_mode is a knob that controls "laptop mode". All the things that are
a09a20b5 1593controlled by this knob are discussed in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt.
1da177e4
LT
1594
1595block_dump
1596----------
1597
1598block_dump enables block I/O debugging when set to a nonzero value. More
a09a20b5 1599information on block I/O debugging is in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt.
1da177e4
LT
1600
1601swap_token_timeout
1602------------------
1603
1604This file contains valid hold time of swap out protection token. The Linux
1605VM has token based thrashing control mechanism and uses the token to prevent
1606unnecessary page faults in thrashing situation. The unit of the value is
1607second. The value would be useful to tune thrashing behavior.
1608
9d0243bc
AM
1609drop_caches
1610-----------
1611
1612Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and
1613inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free.
1614
1615To free pagecache:
1616 echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
1617To free dentries and inodes:
1618 echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
1619To free pagecache, dentries and inodes:
1620 echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
1621
1622As this is a non-destructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, the
1623user should run `sync' first.
1624
1625
1da177e4
LT
16262.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters
1627----------------------------------------------
1628
1629Currently there is only support for CDROM drives, and for those, there is only
1630one read-only file containing information about the CD-ROM drives attached to
1631the system:
1632
1633 >cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info
1634 CD-ROM information, Id: cdrom.c 2.55 1999/04/25
1635
1636 drive name: sr0 hdb
1637 drive speed: 32 40
1638 drive # of slots: 1 0
1639 Can close tray: 1 1
1640 Can open tray: 1 1
1641 Can lock tray: 1 1
1642 Can change speed: 1 1
1643 Can select disk: 0 1
1644 Can read multisession: 1 1
1645 Can read MCN: 1 1
1646 Reports media changed: 1 1
1647 Can play audio: 1 1
1648
1649
1650You see two drives, sr0 and hdb, along with a list of their features.
1651
16522.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls
1653---------------------------------------------
1654
1655This directory contains four files, which enable or disable debugging for the
1656RPC functions NFS, NFS-daemon, RPC and NLM. The default values are 0. They can
1657be set to one to turn debugging on. (The default value is 0 for each)
1658
16592.7 /proc/sys/net - Networking stuff
1660------------------------------------
1661
1662The interface to the networking parts of the kernel is located in
1663/proc/sys/net. Table 2-3 shows all possible subdirectories. You may see only
1664some of them, depending on your kernel's configuration.
1665
1666
1667Table 2-3: Subdirectories in /proc/sys/net
1668..............................................................................
1669 Directory Content Directory Content
1670 core General parameter appletalk Appletalk protocol
1671 unix Unix domain sockets netrom NET/ROM
1672 802 E802 protocol ax25 AX25
1673 ethernet Ethernet protocol rose X.25 PLP layer
1674 ipv4 IP version 4 x25 X.25 protocol
1675 ipx IPX token-ring IBM token ring
1676 bridge Bridging decnet DEC net
1677 ipv6 IP version 6
1678..............................................................................
1679
1680We will concentrate on IP networking here. Since AX15, X.25, and DEC Net are
1681only minor players in the Linux world, we'll skip them in this chapter. You'll
1682find some short info on Appletalk and IPX further on in this chapter. Review
1683the online documentation and the kernel source to get a detailed view of the
1684parameters for those protocols. In this section we'll discuss the
1685subdirectories printed in bold letters in the table above. As default values
1686are suitable for most needs, there is no need to change these values.
1687
1688/proc/sys/net/core - Network core options
1689-----------------------------------------
1690
1691rmem_default
1692------------
1693
1694The default setting of the socket receive buffer in bytes.
1695
1696rmem_max
1697--------
1698
1699The maximum receive socket buffer size in bytes.
1700
1701wmem_default
1702------------
1703
1704The default setting (in bytes) of the socket send buffer.
1705
1706wmem_max
1707--------
1708
1709The maximum send socket buffer size in bytes.
1710
1711message_burst and message_cost
1712------------------------------
1713
1714These parameters are used to limit the warning messages written to the kernel
1715log from the networking code. They enforce a rate limit to make a
1716denial-of-service attack impossible. A higher message_cost factor, results in
1717fewer messages that will be written. Message_burst controls when messages will
1718be dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to one every five
1719seconds.
1720
a2a316fd
SH
1721warnings
1722--------
1723
1724This controls console messages from the networking stack that can occur because
1725of problems on the network like duplicate address or bad checksums. Normally,
1726this should be enabled, but if the problem persists the messages can be
1727disabled.
1728
1729
1da177e4
LT
1730netdev_max_backlog
1731------------------
1732
1733Maximum number of packets, queued on the INPUT side, when the interface
1734receives packets faster than kernel can process them.
1735
1736optmem_max
1737----------
1738
1739Maximum ancillary buffer size allowed per socket. Ancillary data is a sequence
1740of struct cmsghdr structures with appended data.
1741
1742/proc/sys/net/unix - Parameters for Unix domain sockets
1743-------------------------------------------------------
1744
1745There are only two files in this subdirectory. They control the delays for
1746deleting and destroying socket descriptors.
1747
17482.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings
1749--------------------------------------
1750
1751IP version 4 is still the most used protocol in Unix networking. It will be
1752replaced by IP version 6 in the next couple of years, but for the moment it's
1753the de facto standard for the internet and is used in most networking
1754environments around the world. Because of the importance of this protocol,
1755we'll have a deeper look into the subtree controlling the behavior of the IPv4
1756subsystem of the Linux kernel.
1757
1758Let's start with the entries in /proc/sys/net/ipv4.
1759
1760ICMP settings
1761-------------
1762
1763icmp_echo_ignore_all and icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts
1764----------------------------------------------------
1765
1766Turn on (1) or off (0), if the kernel should ignore all ICMP ECHO requests, or
1767just those to broadcast and multicast addresses.
1768
1769Please note that if you accept ICMP echo requests with a broadcast/multi\-cast
1770destination address your network may be used as an exploder for denial of
1771service packet flooding attacks to other hosts.
1772
1773icmp_destunreach_rate, icmp_echoreply_rate, icmp_paramprob_rate and icmp_timeexeed_rate
1774---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1775
1776Sets limits for sending ICMP packets to specific targets. A value of zero
1777disables all limiting. Any positive value sets the maximum package rate in
1778hundredth of a second (on Intel systems).
1779
1780IP settings
1781-----------
1782
1783ip_autoconfig
1784-------------
1785
1786This file contains the number one if the host received its IP configuration by
1787RARP, BOOTP, DHCP or a similar mechanism. Otherwise it is zero.
1788
1789ip_default_ttl
1790--------------
1791
1792TTL (Time To Live) for IPv4 interfaces. This is simply the maximum number of
1793hops a packet may travel.
1794
1795ip_dynaddr
1796----------
1797
1798Enable dynamic socket address rewriting on interface address change. This is
1799useful for dialup interface with changing IP addresses.
1800
1801ip_forward
1802----------
1803
1804Enable or disable forwarding of IP packages between interfaces. Changing this
1805value resets all other parameters to their default values. They differ if the
1806kernel is configured as host or router.
1807
1808ip_local_port_range
1809-------------------
1810
1811Range of ports used by TCP and UDP to choose the local port. Contains two
1812numbers, the first number is the lowest port, the second number the highest
1813local port. Default is 1024-4999. Should be changed to 32768-61000 for
1814high-usage systems.
1815
1816ip_no_pmtu_disc
1817---------------
1818
1819Global switch to turn path MTU discovery off. It can also be set on a per
1820socket basis by the applications or on a per route basis.
1821
1822ip_masq_debug
1823-------------
1824
1825Enable/disable debugging of IP masquerading.
1826
1827IP fragmentation settings
1828-------------------------
1829
1830ipfrag_high_trash and ipfrag_low_trash
1831--------------------------------------
1832
1833Maximum memory used to reassemble IP fragments. When ipfrag_high_thresh bytes
1834of memory is allocated for this purpose, the fragment handler will toss
1835packets until ipfrag_low_thresh is reached.
1836
1837ipfrag_time
1838-----------
1839
1840Time in seconds to keep an IP fragment in memory.
1841
1842TCP settings
1843------------
1844
1845tcp_ecn
1846-------
1847
fa00e7e1 1848This file controls the use of the ECN bit in the IPv4 headers. This is a new
1da177e4 1849feature about Explicit Congestion Notification, but some routers and firewalls
fa00e7e1
ML
1850block traffic that has this bit set, so it could be necessary to echo 0 to
1851/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn if you want to talk to these sites. For more info
1da177e4
LT
1852you could read RFC2481.
1853
1854tcp_retrans_collapse
1855--------------------
1856
1857Bug-to-bug compatibility with some broken printers. On retransmit, try to send
1858larger packets to work around bugs in certain TCP stacks. Can be turned off by
1859setting it to zero.
1860
1861tcp_keepalive_probes
1862--------------------
1863
1864Number of keep alive probes TCP sends out, until it decides that the
1865connection is broken.
1866
1867tcp_keepalive_time
1868------------------
1869
1870How often TCP sends out keep alive messages, when keep alive is enabled. The
1871default is 2 hours.
1872
1873tcp_syn_retries
1874---------------
1875
1876Number of times initial SYNs for a TCP connection attempt will be
1877retransmitted. Should not be higher than 255. This is only the timeout for
1878outgoing connections, for incoming connections the number of retransmits is
1879defined by tcp_retries1.
1880
1881tcp_sack
1882--------
1883
1884Enable select acknowledgments after RFC2018.
1885
1886tcp_timestamps
1887--------------
1888
1889Enable timestamps as defined in RFC1323.
1890
1891tcp_stdurg
1892----------
1893
1894Enable the strict RFC793 interpretation of the TCP urgent pointer field. The
1895default is to use the BSD compatible interpretation of the urgent pointer
1896pointing to the first byte after the urgent data. The RFC793 interpretation is
1897to have it point to the last byte of urgent data. Enabling this option may
2fe0ae78 1898lead to interoperability problems. Disabled by default.
1da177e4
LT
1899
1900tcp_syncookies
1901--------------
1902
1903Only valid when the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_SYNCOOKIES. Send out
1904syncookies when the syn backlog queue of a socket overflows. This is to ward
1905off the common 'syn flood attack'. Disabled by default.
1906
1907Note that the concept of a socket backlog is abandoned. This means the peer
1908may not receive reliable error messages from an over loaded server with
1909syncookies enabled.
1910
1911tcp_window_scaling
1912------------------
1913
1914Enable window scaling as defined in RFC1323.
1915
1916tcp_fin_timeout
1917---------------
1918
1919The length of time in seconds it takes to receive a final FIN before the
1920socket is always closed. This is strictly a violation of the TCP
1921specification, but required to prevent denial-of-service attacks.
1922
1923tcp_max_ka_probes
1924-----------------
1925
1926Indicates how many keep alive probes are sent per slow timer run. Should not
1927be set too high to prevent bursts.
1928
1929tcp_max_syn_backlog
1930-------------------
1931
1932Length of the per socket backlog queue. Since Linux 2.2 the backlog specified
1933in listen(2) only specifies the length of the backlog queue of already
1934established sockets. When more connection requests arrive Linux starts to drop
1935packets. When syncookies are enabled the packets are still answered and the
1936maximum queue is effectively ignored.
1937
1938tcp_retries1
1939------------
1940
1941Defines how often an answer to a TCP connection request is retransmitted
1942before giving up.
1943
1944tcp_retries2
1945------------
1946
1947Defines how often a TCP packet is retransmitted before giving up.
1948
1949Interface specific settings
1950---------------------------
1951
1952In the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf you'll find one subdirectory for each
1953interface the system knows about and one directory calls all. Changes in the
1954all subdirectory affect all interfaces, whereas changes in the other
1955subdirectories affect only one interface. All directories have the same
1956entries:
1957
1958accept_redirects
1959----------------
1960
1961This switch decides if the kernel accepts ICMP redirect messages or not. The
1962default is 'yes' if the kernel is configured for a regular host and 'no' for a
1963router configuration.
1964
1965accept_source_route
1966-------------------
1967
1968Should source routed packages be accepted or declined. The default is
1969dependent on the kernel configuration. It's 'yes' for routers and 'no' for
1970hosts.
1971
1972bootp_relay
1973~~~~~~~~~~~
1974
1975Accept packets with source address 0.b.c.d with destinations not to this host
1976as local ones. It is supposed that a BOOTP relay daemon will catch and forward
1977such packets.
1978
1979The default is 0, since this feature is not implemented yet (kernel version
19802.2.12).
1981
1982forwarding
1983----------
1984
1985Enable or disable IP forwarding on this interface.
1986
1987log_martians
1988------------
1989
1990Log packets with source addresses with no known route to kernel log.
1991
1992mc_forwarding
1993-------------
1994
1995Do multicast routing. The kernel needs to be compiled with CONFIG_MROUTE and a
1996multicast routing daemon is required.
1997
1998proxy_arp
1999---------
2000
2001Does (1) or does not (0) perform proxy ARP.
2002
2003rp_filter
2004---------
2005
2006Integer value determines if a source validation should be made. 1 means yes, 0
2007means no. Disabled by default, but local/broadcast address spoofing is always
2008on.
2009
2010If you set this to 1 on a router that is the only connection for a network to
2011the net, it will prevent spoofing attacks against your internal networks
2012(external addresses can still be spoofed), without the need for additional
2013firewall rules.
2014
2015secure_redirects
2016----------------
2017
2018Accept ICMP redirect messages only for gateways, listed in default gateway
2019list. Enabled by default.
2020
2021shared_media
2022------------
2023
2024If it is not set the kernel does not assume that different subnets on this
2025device can communicate directly. Default setting is 'yes'.
2026
2027send_redirects
2028--------------
2029
2030Determines whether to send ICMP redirects to other hosts.
2031
2032Routing settings
2033----------------
2034
2035The directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route contains several file to control
2036routing issues.
2037
2038error_burst and error_cost
2039--------------------------
2040
2041These parameters are used to limit how many ICMP destination unreachable to
2042send from the host in question. ICMP destination unreachable messages are
84eb8d06 2043sent when we cannot reach the next hop while trying to transmit a packet.
1da177e4
LT
2044It will also print some error messages to kernel logs if someone is ignoring
2045our ICMP redirects. The higher the error_cost factor is, the fewer
2046destination unreachable and error messages will be let through. Error_burst
2047controls when destination unreachable messages and error messages will be
2048dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to five every second.
2049
2050flush
2051-----
2052
2053Writing to this file results in a flush of the routing cache.
2054
2055gc_elasticity, gc_interval, gc_min_interval_ms, gc_timeout, gc_thresh
2056---------------------------------------------------------------------
2057
2058Values to control the frequency and behavior of the garbage collection
2059algorithm for the routing cache. gc_min_interval is deprecated and replaced
2060by gc_min_interval_ms.
2061
2062
2063max_size
2064--------
2065
2066Maximum size of the routing cache. Old entries will be purged once the cache
2067reached has this size.
2068
1da177e4
LT
2069redirect_load, redirect_number
2070------------------------------
2071
2072Factors which determine if more ICPM redirects should be sent to a specific
2073host. No redirects will be sent once the load limit or the maximum number of
2074redirects has been reached.
2075
2076redirect_silence
2077----------------
2078
2079Timeout for redirects. After this period redirects will be sent again, even if
2080this has been stopped, because the load or number limit has been reached.
2081
2082Network Neighbor handling
2083-------------------------
2084
2085Settings about how to handle connections with direct neighbors (nodes attached
2086to the same link) can be found in the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh.
2087
2088As we saw it in the conf directory, there is a default subdirectory which
2089holds the default values, and one directory for each interface. The contents
2090of the directories are identical, with the single exception that the default
2091settings contain additional options to set garbage collection parameters.
2092
2093In the interface directories you'll find the following entries:
2094
2095base_reachable_time, base_reachable_time_ms
2096-------------------------------------------
2097
2098A base value used for computing the random reachable time value as specified
2099in RFC2461.
2100
2101Expression of base_reachable_time, which is deprecated, is in seconds.
2102Expression of base_reachable_time_ms is in milliseconds.
2103
2104retrans_time, retrans_time_ms
2105-----------------------------
2106
2107The time between retransmitted Neighbor Solicitation messages.
2108Used for address resolution and to determine if a neighbor is
2109unreachable.
2110
2111Expression of retrans_time, which is deprecated, is in 1/100 seconds (for
2112IPv4) or in jiffies (for IPv6).
2113Expression of retrans_time_ms is in milliseconds.
2114
2115unres_qlen
2116----------
2117
2118Maximum queue length for a pending arp request - the number of packets which
2119are accepted from other layers while the ARP address is still resolved.
2120
2121anycast_delay
2122-------------
2123
2124Maximum for random delay of answers to neighbor solicitation messages in
2125jiffies (1/100 sec). Not yet implemented (Linux does not have anycast support
2126yet).
2127
2128ucast_solicit
2129-------------
2130
2131Maximum number of retries for unicast solicitation.
2132
2133mcast_solicit
2134-------------
2135
2136Maximum number of retries for multicast solicitation.
2137
2138delay_first_probe_time
2139----------------------
2140
2141Delay for the first time probe if the neighbor is reachable. (see
2142gc_stale_time)
2143
2144locktime
2145--------
2146
2147An ARP/neighbor entry is only replaced with a new one if the old is at least
2148locktime old. This prevents ARP cache thrashing.
2149
2150proxy_delay
2151-----------
2152
2153Maximum time (real time is random [0..proxytime]) before answering to an ARP
2154request for which we have an proxy ARP entry. In some cases, this is used to
2155prevent network flooding.
2156
2157proxy_qlen
2158----------
2159
2160Maximum queue length of the delayed proxy arp timer. (see proxy_delay).
2161
53cb4726 2162app_solicit
1da177e4
LT
2163----------
2164
2165Determines the number of requests to send to the user level ARP daemon. Use 0
2166to turn off.
2167
2168gc_stale_time
2169-------------
2170
2171Determines how often to check for stale ARP entries. After an ARP entry is
2172stale it will be resolved again (which is useful when an IP address migrates
2173to another machine). When ucast_solicit is greater than 0 it first tries to
2174send an ARP packet directly to the known host When that fails and
2175mcast_solicit is greater than 0, an ARP request is broadcasted.
2176
21772.9 Appletalk
2178-------------
2179
2180The /proc/sys/net/appletalk directory holds the Appletalk configuration data
2181when Appletalk is loaded. The configurable parameters are:
2182
2183aarp-expiry-time
2184----------------
2185
2186The amount of time we keep an ARP entry before expiring it. Used to age out
2187old hosts.
2188
2189aarp-resolve-time
2190-----------------
2191
2192The amount of time we will spend trying to resolve an Appletalk address.
2193
2194aarp-retransmit-limit
2195---------------------
2196
2197The number of times we will retransmit a query before giving up.
2198
2199aarp-tick-time
2200--------------
2201
2202Controls the rate at which expires are checked.
2203
2204The directory /proc/net/appletalk holds the list of active Appletalk sockets
2205on a machine.
2206
2207The fields indicate the DDP type, the local address (in network:node format)
2208the remote address, the size of the transmit pending queue, the size of the
2209received queue (bytes waiting for applications to read) the state and the uid
2210owning the socket.
2211
2212/proc/net/atalk_iface lists all the interfaces configured for appletalk.It
2213shows the name of the interface, its Appletalk address, the network range on
2214that address (or network number for phase 1 networks), and the status of the
2215interface.
2216
2217/proc/net/atalk_route lists each known network route. It lists the target
2218(network) that the route leads to, the router (may be directly connected), the
2219route flags, and the device the route is using.
2220
22212.10 IPX
2222--------
2223
2224The IPX protocol has no tunable values in proc/sys/net.
2225
2226The IPX protocol does, however, provide proc/net/ipx. This lists each IPX
2227socket giving the local and remote addresses in Novell format (that is
2228network:node:port). In accordance with the strange Novell tradition,
2229everything but the port is in hex. Not_Connected is displayed for sockets that
2230are not tied to a specific remote address. The Tx and Rx queue sizes indicate
2231the number of bytes pending for transmission and reception. The state
2232indicates the state the socket is in and the uid is the owning uid of the
2233socket.
2234
2235The /proc/net/ipx_interface file lists all IPX interfaces. For each interface
2236it gives the network number, the node number, and indicates if the network is
2237the primary network. It also indicates which device it is bound to (or
2238Internal for internal networks) and the Frame Type if appropriate. Linux
2239supports 802.3, 802.2, 802.2 SNAP and DIX (Blue Book) ethernet framing for
2240IPX.
2241
2242The /proc/net/ipx_route table holds a list of IPX routes. For each route it
2243gives the destination network, the router node (or Directly) and the network
2244address of the router (or Connected) for internal networks.
2245
22462.11 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem
2247----------------------------------------------------------
2248
2249The "mqueue" filesystem provides the necessary kernel features to enable the
2250creation of a user space library that implements the POSIX message queues
2251API (as noted by the MSG tag in the POSIX 1003.1-2001 version of the System
2252Interfaces specification.)
2253
2254The "mqueue" filesystem contains values for determining/setting the amount of
2255resources used by the file system.
2256
2257/proc/sys/fs/mqueue/queues_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the
2258maximum number of message queues allowed on the system.
2259
2260/proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msg_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the
2261maximum number of messages in a queue value. In fact it is the limiting value
2262for another (user) limit which is set in mq_open invocation. This attribute of
2263a queue must be less or equal then msg_max.
2264
2265/proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msgsize_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the
2266maximum message size value (it is every message queue's attribute set during
2267its creation).
2268
d7ff0dbf
JFM
22692.12 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
2270------------------------------------------------------
2271
2272This file can be used to adjust the score used to select which processes
2273should be killed in an out-of-memory situation. Giving it a high score will
2274increase the likelihood of this process being killed by the oom-killer. Valid
2275values are in the range -16 to +15, plus the special value -17, which disables
2276oom-killing altogether for this process.
2277
22782.13 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
2279-------------------------------------------------------------
2280
2281------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2282This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for
2283any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_adj to tune which
2284process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation.
1da177e4
LT
2285
2286------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2287Summary
2288------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2289Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the
2290need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the
2291/proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo
2292command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings
2293of the kernel.
2294------------------------------------------------------------------------------
f9c99463
RK
2295
22962.14 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
2297-------------------------------------------------------
2298
2299This file contains IO statistics for each running process
2300
2301Example
2302-------
2303
2304test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat &
2305[1] 3828
2306
2307test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io
2308rchar: 323934931
2309wchar: 323929600
2310syscr: 632687
2311syscw: 632675
2312read_bytes: 0
2313write_bytes: 323932160
2314cancelled_write_bytes: 0
2315
2316
2317Description
2318-----------
2319
2320rchar
2321-----
2322
2323I/O counter: chars read
2324The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This
2325is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread().
2326It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual
2327physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from
2328pagecache)
2329
2330
2331wchar
2332-----
2333
2334I/O counter: chars written
2335The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written
2336to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar.
2337
2338
2339syscr
2340-----
2341
2342I/O counter: read syscalls
2343Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read()
2344and pread().
2345
2346
2347syscw
2348-----
2349
2350I/O counter: write syscalls
2351Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like
2352write() and pwrite().
2353
2354
2355read_bytes
2356----------
2357
2358I/O counter: bytes read
2359Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to
2360be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is
2361accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and
2362CIFS at a later time>
2363
2364
2365write_bytes
2366-----------
2367
2368I/O counter: bytes written
2369Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to
2370the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time.
2371
2372
2373cancelled_write_bytes
2374---------------------
2375
2376The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and
2377then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have
2378been accounted as having caused 1MB of write.
2379In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen,
2380by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task
2381truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted
2382for (in it's write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that
2383from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing
2384that.
2385
2386
2387Note
2388----
2389
2390At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if
2391process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of
2392those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result.
2393
2394
2395More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in
2396Documentation/accounting.
2397
bb90110d
KH
23982.15 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
2399---------------------------------------------------------------
2400When a process is dumped, all anonymous memory is written to a core file as
2401long as the size of the core file isn't limited. But sometimes we don't want
2402to dump some memory segments, for example, huge shared memory. Conversely,
2403sometimes we want to save file-backed memory segments into a core file, not
2404only the individual files.
2405
2406/proc/<pid>/coredump_filter allows you to customize which memory segments
2407will be dumped when the <pid> process is dumped. coredump_filter is a bitmask
2408of memory types. If a bit of the bitmask is set, memory segments of the
2409corresponding memory type are dumped, otherwise they are not dumped.
2410
2411The following 4 memory types are supported:
2412 - (bit 0) anonymous private memory
2413 - (bit 1) anonymous shared memory
2414 - (bit 2) file-backed private memory
2415 - (bit 3) file-backed shared memory
2416
2417 Note that MMIO pages such as frame buffer are never dumped and vDSO pages
2418 are always dumped regardless of the bitmask status.
2419
2420Default value of coredump_filter is 0x3; this means all anonymous memory
2421segments are dumped.
2422
2423If you don't want to dump all shared memory segments attached to pid 1234,
2424write 1 to the process's proc file.
2425
2426 $ echo 0x1 > /proc/1234/coredump_filter
2427
2428When a new process is created, the process inherits the bitmask status from its
2429parent. It is useful to set up coredump_filter before the program runs.
2430For example:
2431
2432 $ echo 0x7 > /proc/self/coredump_filter
2433 $ ./some_program
2434
2d4d4864
RP
24352.16 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
2436--------------------------------------------------------
2437
2438This file contains lines of the form:
2439
244036 35 98:0 /mnt1 /mnt2 rw,noatime master:1 - ext3 /dev/root rw,errors=continue
2441(1)(2)(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
2442
2443(1) mount ID: unique identifier of the mount (may be reused after umount)
2444(2) parent ID: ID of parent (or of self for the top of the mount tree)
2445(3) major:minor: value of st_dev for files on filesystem
2446(4) root: root of the mount within the filesystem
2447(5) mount point: mount point relative to the process's root
2448(6) mount options: per mount options
2449(7) optional fields: zero or more fields of the form "tag[:value]"
2450(8) separator: marks the end of the optional fields
2451(9) filesystem type: name of filesystem of the form "type[.subtype]"
2452(10) mount source: filesystem specific information or "none"
2453(11) super options: per super block options
2454
2455Parsers should ignore all unrecognised optional fields. Currently the
2456possible optional fields are:
2457
2458shared:X mount is shared in peer group X
2459master:X mount is slave to peer group X
97e7e0f7 2460propagate_from:X mount is slave and receives propagation from peer group X (*)
2d4d4864
RP
2461unbindable mount is unbindable
2462
97e7e0f7
MS
2463(*) X is the closest dominant peer group under the process's root. If
2464X is the immediate master of the mount, or if there's no dominant peer
2465group under the same root, then only the "master:X" field is present
2466and not the "propagate_from:X" field.
2467
2d4d4864
RP
2468For more information on mount propagation see:
2469
2470 Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt
2471
f9c99463 2472------------------------------------------------------------------------------