mm: avoid false sharing of mm_counter
[GitHub/mt8127/android_kernel_alcatel_ttab.git] / Documentation / filesystems / proc.txt
CommitLineData
1da177e4
LT
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
349888ee 8move /proc/sys Shen Feng <shen@cn.fujitsu.com> April 1 2009
1da177e4
LT
9------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10Version 1.3 Kernel version 2.2.12
11 Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4
12------------------------------------------------------------------------------
349888ee 13fixes/update part 1.1 Stefani Seibold <stefani@seibold.net> June 9 2009
1da177e4
LT
14
15Table of Contents
16-----------------
17
18 0 Preface
19 0.1 Introduction/Credits
20 0.2 Legal Stuff
21
22 1 Collecting System Information
23 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
24 1.2 Kernel data
25 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
26 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
27 1.5 SCSI info
28 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
29 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
30 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
760df93e 31 1.9 Ext4 file system parameters
1da177e4
LT
32
33 2 Modifying System Parameters
760df93e
SF
34
35 3 Per-Process Parameters
36 3.1 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
37 3.2 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
38 3.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
39 3.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
40 3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
4614a696 41 3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
760df93e 42
1da177e4
LT
43
44------------------------------------------------------------------------------
45Preface
46------------------------------------------------------------------------------
47
480.1 Introduction/Credits
49------------------------
50
51This documentation is part of a soon (or so we hope) to be released book on
52the SuSE Linux distribution. As there is no complete documentation for the
53/proc file system and we've used many freely available sources to write these
54chapters, it seems only fair to give the work back to the Linux community.
55This work is based on the 2.2.* kernel version and the upcoming 2.4.*. I'm
56afraid it's still far from complete, but we hope it will be useful. As far as
57we know, it is the first 'all-in-one' document about the /proc file system. It
58is focused on the Intel x86 hardware, so if you are looking for PPC, ARM,
59SPARC, AXP, etc., features, you probably won't find what you are looking for.
60It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols - sorry. But
61additions and patches are welcome and will be added to this document if you
62mail them to Bodo.
63
64We'd like to thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of
65other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a
66special thank you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily
67to create this document, as well as the additional information he provided.
68Thanks to everybody else who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel
69and helped create a great piece of software... :)
70
71If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to
72contact Bodo Bauer at bb@ricochet.net. We'll be happy to add them to this
73document.
74
75The latest version of this document is available online at
76http://skaro.nightcrawler.com/~bb/Docs/Proc as HTML version.
77
78If the above direction does not works for you, ypu could try the kernel
79mailing list at linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org and/or try to reach me at
80comandante@zaralinux.com.
81
820.2 Legal Stuff
83---------------
84
85We don't guarantee the correctness of this document, and if you come to us
86complaining about how you screwed up your system because of incorrect
87documentation, we won't feel responsible...
88
89------------------------------------------------------------------------------
90CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION
91------------------------------------------------------------------------------
92
93------------------------------------------------------------------------------
94In This Chapter
95------------------------------------------------------------------------------
96* Investigating the properties of the pseudo file system /proc and its
97 ability to provide information on the running Linux system
98* Examining /proc's structure
99* Uncovering various information about the kernel and the processes running
100 on the system
101------------------------------------------------------------------------------
102
103
104The proc file system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the
105kernel. It can be used to obtain information about the system and to change
106certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl).
107
108First, we'll take a look at the read-only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we
109show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings.
110
1111.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
112-----------------------------------
113
114The directory /proc contains (among other things) one subdirectory for each
115process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID).
116
117The link self points to the process reading the file system. Each process
118subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1-1.
119
120
349888ee 121Table 1-1: Process specific entries in /proc
1da177e4 122..............................................................................
b813e931
DR
123 File Content
124 clear_refs Clears page referenced bits shown in smaps output
125 cmdline Command line arguments
126 cpu Current and last cpu in which it was executed (2.4)(smp)
127 cwd Link to the current working directory
128 environ Values of environment variables
129 exe Link to the executable of this process
130 fd Directory, which contains all file descriptors
131 maps Memory maps to executables and library files (2.4)
132 mem Memory held by this process
133 root Link to the root directory of this process
134 stat Process status
135 statm Process memory status information
136 status Process status in human readable form
137 wchan If CONFIG_KALLSYMS is set, a pre-decoded wchan
2ec220e2 138 stack Report full stack trace, enable via CONFIG_STACKTRACE
349888ee
SS
139 smaps a extension based on maps, showing the memory consumption of
140 each mapping
1da177e4
LT
141..............................................................................
142
143For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is
144read the file /proc/PID/status:
145
349888ee
SS
146 >cat /proc/self/status
147 Name: cat
148 State: R (running)
149 Tgid: 5452
150 Pid: 5452
151 PPid: 743
1da177e4 152 TracerPid: 0 (2.4)
349888ee
SS
153 Uid: 501 501 501 501
154 Gid: 100 100 100 100
155 FDSize: 256
156 Groups: 100 14 16
157 VmPeak: 5004 kB
158 VmSize: 5004 kB
159 VmLck: 0 kB
160 VmHWM: 476 kB
161 VmRSS: 476 kB
162 VmData: 156 kB
163 VmStk: 88 kB
164 VmExe: 68 kB
165 VmLib: 1412 kB
166 VmPTE: 20 kb
167 Threads: 1
168 SigQ: 0/28578
169 SigPnd: 0000000000000000
170 ShdPnd: 0000000000000000
171 SigBlk: 0000000000000000
172 SigIgn: 0000000000000000
173 SigCgt: 0000000000000000
174 CapInh: 00000000fffffeff
175 CapPrm: 0000000000000000
176 CapEff: 0000000000000000
177 CapBnd: ffffffffffffffff
178 voluntary_ctxt_switches: 0
179 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 1
1da177e4
LT
180
181This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
182the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its
349888ee
SS
183information. But you get a more detailed view of the process by reading the
184file /proc/PID/status. It fields are described in table 1-2.
185
186The statm file contains more detailed information about the process
187memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-3. The stat file
188contains details information about the process itself. Its fields are
189explained in Table 1-4.
1da177e4 190
34e55232
KH
191(for SMP CONFIG users)
192For making accounting scalable, RSS related information are handled in
193asynchronous manner and the vaule may not be very precise. To see a precise
194snapshot of a moment, you can see /proc/<pid>/smaps file and scan page table.
195It's slow but very precise.
196
349888ee
SS
197Table 1-2: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.30-rc7)
198..............................................................................
199 Field Content
200 Name filename of the executable
201 State state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping
202 in an uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie,
203 T is traced or stopped)
204 Tgid thread group ID
205 Pid process id
206 PPid process id of the parent process
207 TracerPid PID of process tracing this process (0 if not)
208 Uid Real, effective, saved set, and file system UIDs
209 Gid Real, effective, saved set, and file system GIDs
210 FDSize number of file descriptor slots currently allocated
211 Groups supplementary group list
212 VmPeak peak virtual memory size
213 VmSize total program size
214 VmLck locked memory size
215 VmHWM peak resident set size ("high water mark")
216 VmRSS size of memory portions
217 VmData size of data, stack, and text segments
218 VmStk size of data, stack, and text segments
219 VmExe size of text segment
220 VmLib size of shared library code
221 VmPTE size of page table entries
222 Threads number of threads
223 SigQ number of signals queued/max. number for queue
224 SigPnd bitmap of pending signals for the thread
225 ShdPnd bitmap of shared pending signals for the process
226 SigBlk bitmap of blocked signals
227 SigIgn bitmap of ignored signals
228 SigCgt bitmap of catched signals
229 CapInh bitmap of inheritable capabilities
230 CapPrm bitmap of permitted capabilities
231 CapEff bitmap of effective capabilities
232 CapBnd bitmap of capabilities bounding set
233 Cpus_allowed mask of CPUs on which this process may run
234 Cpus_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
235 Mems_allowed mask of memory nodes allowed to this process
236 Mems_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
237 voluntary_ctxt_switches number of voluntary context switches
238 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches number of non voluntary context switches
239..............................................................................
1da177e4 240
349888ee 241Table 1-3: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3)
1da177e4
LT
242..............................................................................
243 Field Content
244 size total program size (pages) (same as VmSize in status)
245 resident size of memory portions (pages) (same as VmRSS in status)
246 shared number of pages that are shared (i.e. backed by a file)
247 trs number of pages that are 'code' (not including libs; broken,
248 includes data segment)
249 lrs number of pages of library (always 0 on 2.6)
250 drs number of pages of data/stack (including libs; broken,
251 includes library text)
252 dt number of dirty pages (always 0 on 2.6)
253..............................................................................
254
18d96779 255
349888ee 256Table 1-4: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.30-rc7)
18d96779
KC
257..............................................................................
258 Field Content
259 pid process id
260 tcomm filename of the executable
261 state state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an
262 uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped)
263 ppid process id of the parent process
264 pgrp pgrp of the process
265 sid session id
266 tty_nr tty the process uses
267 tty_pgrp pgrp of the tty
268 flags task flags
269 min_flt number of minor faults
270 cmin_flt number of minor faults with child's
271 maj_flt number of major faults
272 cmaj_flt number of major faults with child's
273 utime user mode jiffies
274 stime kernel mode jiffies
275 cutime user mode jiffies with child's
276 cstime kernel mode jiffies with child's
277 priority priority level
278 nice nice level
279 num_threads number of threads
2e01e00e 280 it_real_value (obsolete, always 0)
18d96779
KC
281 start_time time the process started after system boot
282 vsize virtual memory size
283 rss resident set memory size
284 rsslim current limit in bytes on the rss
285 start_code address above which program text can run
286 end_code address below which program text can run
287 start_stack address of the start of the stack
288 esp current value of ESP
289 eip current value of EIP
349888ee
SS
290 pending bitmap of pending signals
291 blocked bitmap of blocked signals
292 sigign bitmap of ignored signals
293 sigcatch bitmap of catched signals
18d96779
KC
294 wchan address where process went to sleep
295 0 (place holder)
296 0 (place holder)
297 exit_signal signal to send to parent thread on exit
298 task_cpu which CPU the task is scheduled on
299 rt_priority realtime priority
300 policy scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler)
301 blkio_ticks time spent waiting for block IO
349888ee
SS
302 gtime guest time of the task in jiffies
303 cgtime guest time of the task children in jiffies
18d96779
KC
304..............................................................................
305
349888ee
SS
306The /proc/PID/map file containing the currently mapped memory regions and
307their access permissions.
308
309The format is:
310
311address perms offset dev inode pathname
312
31308048000-08049000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
31408049000-0804a000 rw-p 00001000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
3150804a000-0806b000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [heap]
316a7cb1000-a7cb2000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
d899bf7b 317a7cb2000-a7eb2000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [threadstack:001ff4b4]
349888ee
SS
318a7eb2000-a7eb3000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
319a7eb3000-a7ed5000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
320a7ed5000-a8008000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
321a8008000-a800a000 r--p 00133000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
322a800a000-a800b000 rw-p 00135000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
323a800b000-a800e000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
324a800e000-a8022000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
325a8022000-a8023000 r--p 00013000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
326a8023000-a8024000 rw-p 00014000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
327a8024000-a8027000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
328a8027000-a8043000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
329a8043000-a8044000 r--p 0001b000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
330a8044000-a8045000 rw-p 0001c000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
331aff35000-aff4a000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [stack]
332ffffe000-fffff000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0 [vdso]
333
334where "address" is the address space in the process that it occupies, "perms"
335is a set of permissions:
336
337 r = read
338 w = write
339 x = execute
340 s = shared
341 p = private (copy on write)
342
343"offset" is the offset into the mapping, "dev" is the device (major:minor), and
344"inode" is the inode on that device. 0 indicates that no inode is associated
345with the memory region, as the case would be with BSS (uninitialized data).
346The "pathname" shows the name associated file for this mapping. If the mapping
347is not associated with a file:
348
349 [heap] = the heap of the program
350 [stack] = the stack of the main process
351 [vdso] = the "virtual dynamic shared object",
352 the kernel system call handler
d899bf7b 353 [threadstack:xxxxxxxx] = the stack of the thread, xxxxxxxx is the stack size
349888ee
SS
354
355 or if empty, the mapping is anonymous.
356
357
358The /proc/PID/smaps is an extension based on maps, showing the memory
359consumption for each of the process's mappings. For each of mappings there
360is a series of lines such as the following:
361
36208048000-080bc000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 13130 /bin/bash
363Size: 1084 kB
364Rss: 892 kB
365Pss: 374 kB
366Shared_Clean: 892 kB
367Shared_Dirty: 0 kB
368Private_Clean: 0 kB
369Private_Dirty: 0 kB
370Referenced: 892 kB
371Swap: 0 kB
372KernelPageSize: 4 kB
373MMUPageSize: 4 kB
374
375The first of these lines shows the same information as is displayed for the
376mapping in /proc/PID/maps. The remaining lines show the size of the mapping,
377the amount of the mapping that is currently resident in RAM, the "proportional
378set size” (divide each shared page by the number of processes sharing it), the
379number of clean and dirty shared pages in the mapping, and the number of clean
380and dirty private pages in the mapping. The "Referenced" indicates the amount
381of memory currently marked as referenced or accessed.
382
383This file is only present if the CONFIG_MMU kernel configuration option is
384enabled.
18d96779 385
398499d5
MB
386The /proc/PID/clear_refs is used to reset the PG_Referenced and ACCESSED/YOUNG
387bits on both physical and virtual pages associated with a process.
388To clear the bits for all the pages associated with the process
389 > echo 1 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
390
391To clear the bits for the anonymous pages associated with the process
392 > echo 2 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
393
394To clear the bits for the file mapped pages associated with the process
395 > echo 3 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
396Any other value written to /proc/PID/clear_refs will have no effect.
397
398
1da177e4
LT
3991.2 Kernel data
400---------------
401
402Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about
403the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
349888ee 404/proc and are listed in Table 1-5. Not all of these will be present in your
1da177e4
LT
405system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
406files are there, and which are missing.
407
349888ee 408Table 1-5: Kernel info in /proc
1da177e4
LT
409..............................................................................
410 File Content
411 apm Advanced power management info
412 buddyinfo Kernel memory allocator information (see text) (2.5)
413 bus Directory containing bus specific information
414 cmdline Kernel command line
415 cpuinfo Info about the CPU
416 devices Available devices (block and character)
417 dma Used DMS channels
418 filesystems Supported filesystems
419 driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
420 execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4)
421 fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4)
422 fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4)
423 ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem
424 interrupts Interrupt usage
425 iomem Memory map (2.4)
426 ioports I/O port usage
427 irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?)
428 isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4)
429 kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))
430 kmsg Kernel messages
431 ksyms Kernel symbol table
432 loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes
433 locks Kernel locks
434 meminfo Memory info
435 misc Miscellaneous
436 modules List of loaded modules
437 mounts Mounted filesystems
438 net Networking info (see text)
439 partitions Table of partitions known to the system
8b60756a 440 pci Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/,
1da177e4
LT
441 decoupled by lspci (2.4)
442 rtc Real time clock
443 scsi SCSI info (see text)
444 slabinfo Slab pool info
d3d64df2 445 softirqs softirq usage
1da177e4
LT
446 stat Overall statistics
447 swaps Swap space utilization
448 sys See chapter 2
449 sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4)
450 tty Info of tty drivers
451 uptime System uptime
452 version Kernel version
453 video bttv info of video resources (2.4)
a47a126a 454 vmallocinfo Show vmalloced areas
1da177e4
LT
455..............................................................................
456
457You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what
458they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:
459
460 > cat /proc/interrupts
461 CPU0
462 0: 8728810 XT-PIC timer
463 1: 895 XT-PIC keyboard
464 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
465 3: 531695 XT-PIC aha152x
466 4: 2014133 XT-PIC serial
467 5: 44401 XT-PIC pcnet_cs
468 8: 2 XT-PIC rtc
469 11: 8 XT-PIC i82365
470 12: 182918 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
471 13: 1 XT-PIC fpu
472 14: 1232265 XT-PIC ide0
473 15: 7 XT-PIC ide1
474 NMI: 0
475
476In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
477output of a SMP machine):
478
479 > cat /proc/interrupts
480
481 CPU0 CPU1
482 0: 1243498 1214548 IO-APIC-edge timer
483 1: 8949 8958 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
484 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade
485 5: 11286 10161 IO-APIC-edge soundblaster
486 8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
487 9: 27422 27407 IO-APIC-edge 3c503
488 12: 113645 113873 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
489 13: 0 0 XT-PIC fpu
490 14: 22491 24012 IO-APIC-edge ide0
491 15: 2183 2415 IO-APIC-edge ide1
492 17: 30564 30414 IO-APIC-level eth0
493 18: 177 164 IO-APIC-level bttv
494 NMI: 2457961 2457959
495 LOC: 2457882 2457881
496 ERR: 2155
497
498NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI
499(Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups.
500
501LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU.
502
503ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that
504connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected,
505the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big
506problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ.
507
38e760a1
JK
508In 2.6.2* /proc/interrupts was expanded again. This time the goal was for
509/proc/interrupts to display every IRQ vector in use by the system, not
510just those considered 'most important'. The new vectors are:
511
512 THR -- interrupt raised when a machine check threshold counter
513 (typically counting ECC corrected errors of memory or cache) exceeds
514 a configurable threshold. Only available on some systems.
515
516 TRM -- a thermal event interrupt occurs when a temperature threshold
517 has been exceeded for the CPU. This interrupt may also be generated
518 when the temperature drops back to normal.
519
520 SPU -- a spurious interrupt is some interrupt that was raised then lowered
521 by some IO device before it could be fully processed by the APIC. Hence
522 the APIC sees the interrupt but does not know what device it came from.
523 For this case the APIC will generate the interrupt with a IRQ vector
524 of 0xff. This might also be generated by chipset bugs.
525
526 RES, CAL, TLB -- rescheduling, call and TLB flush interrupts are
527 sent from one CPU to another per the needs of the OS. Typically,
528 their statistics are used by kernel developers and interested users to
19f59460 529 determine the occurrence of interrupts of the given type.
38e760a1
JK
530
531The above IRQ vectors are displayed only when relevent. For example,
532the threshold vector does not exist on x86_64 platforms. Others are
533suppressed when the system is a uniprocessor. As of this writing, only
534i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays.
535
536Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4.
1da177e4
LT
537It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
538IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
18404756
MK
539irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and two files; default_smp_affinity and
540prof_cpu_mask.
1da177e4
LT
541
542For example
543 > ls /proc/irq/
544 0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
18404756 545 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 default_smp_affinity
1da177e4
LT
546 > ls /proc/irq/0/
547 smp_affinity
548
18404756
MK
549smp_affinity is a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the
550IRQ, you can set it by doing:
1da177e4 551
18404756
MK
552 > echo 1 > /proc/irq/10/smp_affinity
553
554This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo
5555 which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
1da177e4 556
18404756
MK
557The contents of each smp_affinity file is the same by default:
558
559 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
560 ffffffff
1da177e4 561
18404756
MK
562The default_smp_affinity mask applies to all non-active IRQs, which are the
563IRQs which have not yet been allocated/activated, and hence which lack a
564/proc/irq/[0-9]* directory.
1da177e4 565
18404756
MK
566prof_cpu_mask specifies which CPUs are to be profiled by the system wide
567profiler. Default value is ffffffff (all cpus).
1da177e4
LT
568
569The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin
570between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
571more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the
572best choice for almost everyone.
573
574There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys.
575The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these
576directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the
577directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there
578only when networking support is present in the running kernel.
579
580The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level.
581Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2.
582Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers,
583directory cache, and so on).
584
585..............................................................................
586
587> cat /proc/buddyinfo
588
589Node 0, zone DMA 0 4 5 4 4 3 ...
590Node 0, zone Normal 1 0 0 1 101 8 ...
591Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 0 ...
592
593Memory fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a
594useful tool for helping diagnose these problems. Buddyinfo will give you a
595clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous
596allocation failed.
597
598Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are
599available. In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in
600ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE
601available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc...
602
603..............................................................................
604
605meminfo:
606
607Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory. This
608varies by architecture and compile options. The following is from a
60916GB PIII, which has highmem enabled. You may not have all of these fields.
610
611> cat /proc/meminfo
612
613
614MemTotal: 16344972 kB
615MemFree: 13634064 kB
616Buffers: 3656 kB
617Cached: 1195708 kB
618SwapCached: 0 kB
619Active: 891636 kB
620Inactive: 1077224 kB
621HighTotal: 15597528 kB
622HighFree: 13629632 kB
623LowTotal: 747444 kB
624LowFree: 4432 kB
625SwapTotal: 0 kB
626SwapFree: 0 kB
627Dirty: 968 kB
628Writeback: 0 kB
b88473f7 629AnonPages: 861800 kB
1da177e4 630Mapped: 280372 kB
b88473f7
MS
631Slab: 284364 kB
632SReclaimable: 159856 kB
633SUnreclaim: 124508 kB
634PageTables: 24448 kB
635NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
636Bounce: 0 kB
637WritebackTmp: 0 kB
1da177e4
LT
638CommitLimit: 7669796 kB
639Committed_AS: 100056 kB
1da177e4
LT
640VmallocTotal: 112216 kB
641VmallocUsed: 428 kB
642VmallocChunk: 111088 kB
643
644 MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved
645 bits and the kernel binary code)
646 MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree
647 Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks
648 shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so)
649 Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the
650 pagecache). Doesn't include SwapCached
651 SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but
652 still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it
653 doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already
654 in the swapfile. This saves I/O)
655 Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not
656 reclaimed unless absolutely necessary.
657 Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used. It is more
658 eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes
659 HighTotal:
660 HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory
661 Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or
662 for the pagecache. The kernel must use tricks to access
663 this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem.
664 LowTotal:
665 LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that
3f6dee9b 666 highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the
1da177e4
LT
667 kernel's use for its own data structures. Among many
668 other things, it is where everything from the Slab is
669 allocated. Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem.
670 SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available
671 SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily
672 on the disk
673 Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk
674 Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk
b88473f7 675 AnonPages: Non-file backed pages mapped into userspace page tables
1da177e4 676 Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries
e82443c0 677 Slab: in-kernel data structures cache
b88473f7
MS
678SReclaimable: Part of Slab, that might be reclaimed, such as caches
679 SUnreclaim: Part of Slab, that cannot be reclaimed on memory pressure
680 PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page
681 tables.
682NFS_Unstable: NFS pages sent to the server, but not yet committed to stable
683 storage
684 Bounce: Memory used for block device "bounce buffers"
685WritebackTmp: Memory used by FUSE for temporary writeback buffers
1da177e4
LT
686 CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'),
687 this is the total amount of memory currently available to
688 be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to
689 if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in
690 'vm.overcommit_memory').
691 The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula:
692 CommitLimit = ('vm.overcommit_ratio' * Physical RAM) + Swap
693 For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G
694 of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would
695 yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G.
696 For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation
697 in vm/overcommit-accounting.
698Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system.
699 The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which
700 has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been
701 "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G
702 of memory, but only touches 300M of it will only show up
703 as using 300M of memory even if it has the address space
704 allocated for the entire 1G. This 1G is memory which has
705 been "committed" to by the VM and can be used at any time
706 by the allocating application. With strict overcommit
707 enabled on the system (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'),
708 allocations which would exceed the CommitLimit (detailed
709 above) will not be permitted. This is useful if one needs
710 to guarantee that processes will not fail due to lack of
711 memory once that memory has been successfully allocated.
1da177e4
LT
712VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area
713 VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used
19f59460 714VmallocChunk: largest contiguous block of vmalloc area which is free
1da177e4 715
a47a126a
ED
716..............................................................................
717
718vmallocinfo:
719
720Provides information about vmalloced/vmaped areas. One line per area,
721containing the virtual address range of the area, size in bytes,
722caller information of the creator, and optional information depending
723on the kind of area :
724
725 pages=nr number of pages
726 phys=addr if a physical address was specified
727 ioremap I/O mapping (ioremap() and friends)
728 vmalloc vmalloc() area
729 vmap vmap()ed pages
730 user VM_USERMAP area
731 vpages buffer for pages pointers was vmalloced (huge area)
732 N<node>=nr (Only on NUMA kernels)
733 Number of pages allocated on memory node <node>
734
735> cat /proc/vmallocinfo
7360xffffc20000000000-0xffffc20000201000 2101248 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
737 /0x2c0 pages=512 vmalloc N0=128 N1=128 N2=128 N3=128
7380xffffc20000201000-0xffffc20000302000 1052672 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
739 /0x2c0 pages=256 vmalloc N0=64 N1=64 N2=64 N3=64
7400xffffc20000302000-0xffffc20000304000 8192 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
741 phys=7fee8000 ioremap
7420xffffc20000304000-0xffffc20000307000 12288 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
743 phys=7fee7000 ioremap
7440xffffc2000031d000-0xffffc2000031f000 8192 init_vdso_vars+0x112/0x210
7450xffffc2000031f000-0xffffc2000032b000 49152 cramfs_uncompress_init+0x2e ...
746 /0x80 pages=11 vmalloc N0=3 N1=3 N2=2 N3=3
7470xffffc2000033a000-0xffffc2000033d000 12288 sys_swapon+0x640/0xac0 ...
748 pages=2 vmalloc N1=2
7490xffffc20000347000-0xffffc2000034c000 20480 xt_alloc_table_info+0xfe ...
750 /0x130 [x_tables] pages=4 vmalloc N0=4
7510xffffffffa0000000-0xffffffffa000f000 61440 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
752 pages=14 vmalloc N2=14
7530xffffffffa000f000-0xffffffffa0014000 20480 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
754 pages=4 vmalloc N1=4
7550xffffffffa0014000-0xffffffffa0017000 12288 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
756 pages=2 vmalloc N1=2
7570xffffffffa0017000-0xffffffffa0022000 45056 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
758 pages=10 vmalloc N0=10
1da177e4 759
d3d64df2
KK
760..............................................................................
761
762softirqs:
763
764Provides counts of softirq handlers serviced since boot time, for each cpu.
765
766> cat /proc/softirqs
767 CPU0 CPU1 CPU2 CPU3
768 HI: 0 0 0 0
769 TIMER: 27166 27120 27097 27034
770 NET_TX: 0 0 0 17
771 NET_RX: 42 0 0 39
772 BLOCK: 0 0 107 1121
773 TASKLET: 0 0 0 290
774 SCHED: 27035 26983 26971 26746
775 HRTIMER: 0 0 0 0
776 RCU: 1678 1769 2178 2250
777
778
1da177e4
LT
7791.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
780----------------------------
781
782The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which
783the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the
784file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory
785in the controller specific subtree.
786
787The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the
788IDE devices:
789
790 > cat /proc/ide/drivers
791 ide-cdrom version 4.53
792 ide-disk version 1.08
793
794More detailed information can be found in the controller specific
795subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these
349888ee 796directories contains the files shown in table 1-6.
1da177e4
LT
797
798
349888ee 799Table 1-6: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide?
1da177e4
LT
800..............................................................................
801 File Content
802 channel IDE channel (0 or 1)
803 config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)
804 mate Mate name
805 model Type/Chipset of IDE controller
806..............................................................................
807
808Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the
349888ee 809controllers directory. The files listed in table 1-7 are contained in these
1da177e4
LT
810directories.
811
812
349888ee 813Table 1-7: IDE device information
1da177e4
LT
814..............................................................................
815 File Content
816 cache The cache
817 capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)
818 driver driver and version
819 geometry physical and logical geometry
820 identify device identify block
821 media media type
822 model device identifier
823 settings device setup
824 smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds
825 smart_values IDE disk management values
826..............................................................................
827
828The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of
829the drive parameters:
830
831 # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings
832 name value min max mode
833 ---- ----- --- --- ----
834 bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw
835 bios_head 255 0 255 rw
836 bios_sect 63 0 63 rw
837 breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw
838 bswap 0 0 1 r
839 file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw
840 io_32bit 0 0 3 rw
841 keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
842 max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw
843 multcount 0 0 8 rw
844 nice1 1 0 1 rw
845 nowerr 0 0 1 rw
846 pio_mode write-only 0 255 w
847 slow 0 0 1 rw
848 unmaskirq 0 0 1 rw
849 using_dma 0 0 1 rw
850
851
8521.4 Networking info in /proc/net
853--------------------------------
854
349888ee 855The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1-8 shows the
1da177e4 856additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to
349888ee 857support this. Table 1-9 lists the files and their meaning.
1da177e4
LT
858
859
349888ee 860Table 1-8: IPv6 info in /proc/net
1da177e4
LT
861..............................................................................
862 File Content
863 udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6)
864 tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6)
865 raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6)
866 igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)
867 if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses
868 ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6
869 rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics
870 sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6)
871 snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6)
872..............................................................................
873
874
349888ee 875Table 1-9: Network info in /proc/net
1da177e4
LT
876..............................................................................
877 File Content
878 arp Kernel ARP table
879 dev network devices with statistics
880 dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too
881 (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound
882 addresses).
883 dev_stat network device status
884 ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage
885 ip_fwnames Firewall chain names
886 ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables
887 ip_masquerade Major masquerading table
888 netstat Network statistics
889 raw raw device statistics
890 route Kernel routing table
891 rpc Directory containing rpc info
892 rt_cache Routing cache
893 snmp SNMP data
894 sockstat Socket statistics
895 tcp TCP sockets
896 tr_rif Token ring RIF routing table
897 udp UDP sockets
898 unix UNIX domain sockets
899 wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)
900 igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined
901 psched Global packet scheduler parameters.
902 netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets
903 ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces
904 ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache
905..............................................................................
906
907You can use this information to see which network devices are available in
908your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices:
909
910 > cat /proc/net/dev
911 Inter-|Receive |[...
912 face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[...
913 lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...
914 ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [...
915 eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [...
916
917 ...] Transmit
918 ...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
919 ...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0
920 ...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0
921 ...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0
922
923In addition, each Channel Bond interface has it's own directory. For
924example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/.
925It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the
926current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how
927many times the slaves link has failed.
928
9291.5 SCSI info
930-------------
931
932If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory
933named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list
934of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi:
935
936 >cat /proc/scsi/scsi
937 Attached devices:
938 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
939 Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0
940 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
941 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
942 Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S Rev: 1.04
943 Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
944
945
946The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in
947the system. These files contain information about the controller, including
948the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is
949dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec
950AHA-2940 SCSI adapter:
951
952 > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0
953
954 Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4
955 Compile Options:
956 TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
957 AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled
958 AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5
959 Adapter Configuration:
960 SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter
961 Ultra Wide Controller
962 PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000
963 Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
964 Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
965 IRQ: 10
966 SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,
967 Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
968 Interrupts: 160328
969 BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6
970 Adapter Control Word: 0x005b
971 Extended Translation: Enabled
972 Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff
973 Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001
974 Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
975 Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
976 Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
977 Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:
978 {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
979 Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:
980 {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
981 Statistics:
982 (scsi0:0:0:0)
983 Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8
984 Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)
985 Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)
986 (scsi0:0:6:0)
987 Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
988 Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)
989 Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)
990
991
9921.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
993---------------------------------------
994
995The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of
996your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port
997number (0,1,2,...).
998
349888ee 999These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-10.
1da177e4
LT
1000
1001
349888ee 1002Table 1-10: Files in /proc/parport
1da177e4
LT
1003..............................................................................
1004 File Content
1005 autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired.
1006 devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the
1007 name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear
1008 against any).
1009 hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.
1010 irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate
1011 file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ
1012 number or none).
1013..............................................................................
1014
10151.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
1016-------------------------
1017
1018Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the
1019directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in
349888ee 1020this directory, as shown in Table 1-11.
1da177e4
LT
1021
1022
349888ee 1023Table 1-11: Files in /proc/tty
1da177e4
LT
1024..............................................................................
1025 File Content
1026 drivers list of drivers and their usage
1027 ldiscs registered line disciplines
1028 driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines
1029..............................................................................
1030
1031To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file
1032/proc/tty/drivers:
1033
1034 > cat /proc/tty/drivers
1035 pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0-255 pty:slave
1036 pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0-255 pty:master
1037 pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0-255 pty:slave
1038 pty_master /dev/pty 2 0-255 pty:master
1039 serial /dev/cua 5 64-67 serial:callout
1040 serial /dev/ttyS 4 64-67 serial
1041 /dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster
1042 /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system
1043 /dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console
1044 /dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty
1045 unknown /dev/tty 4 1-63 console
1046
1047
10481.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
1049-------------------------------------------------
1050
1051Various pieces of information about kernel activity are available in the
1052/proc/stat file. All of the numbers reported in this file are aggregates
1053since the system first booted. For a quick look, simply cat the file:
1054
1055 > cat /proc/stat
c574358e
ED
1056 cpu 2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 0 0
1057 cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 0 0
1058 cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 0 0
1da177e4
LT
1059 intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...]
1060 ctxt 1990473
1061 btime 1062191376
1062 processes 2915
1063 procs_running 1
1064 procs_blocked 0
d3d64df2 1065 softirq 183433 0 21755 12 39 1137 231 21459 2263
1da177e4
LT
1066
1067The very first "cpu" line aggregates the numbers in all of the other "cpuN"
1068lines. These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing
1069different kinds of work. Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a
1070second). The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right:
1071
1072- user: normal processes executing in user mode
1073- nice: niced processes executing in user mode
1074- system: processes executing in kernel mode
1075- idle: twiddling thumbs
1076- iowait: waiting for I/O to complete
1077- irq: servicing interrupts
1078- softirq: servicing softirqs
b68f2c3a 1079- steal: involuntary wait
ce0e7b28
RO
1080- guest: running a normal guest
1081- guest_nice: running a niced guest
1da177e4
LT
1082
1083The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts serviced since boot time, for each
1084of the possible system interrupts. The first column is the total of all
1085interrupts serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
1086interrupt.
1087
1088The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs.
1089
1090The "btime" line gives the time at which the system booted, in seconds since
1091the Unix epoch.
1092
1093The "processes" line gives the number of processes and threads created, which
1094includes (but is not limited to) those created by calls to the fork() and
1095clone() system calls.
1096
e3cc2226
LGE
1097The "procs_running" line gives the total number of threads that are
1098running or ready to run (i.e., the total number of runnable threads).
1da177e4
LT
1099
1100The "procs_blocked" line gives the number of processes currently blocked,
1101waiting for I/O to complete.
1102
d3d64df2
KK
1103The "softirq" line gives counts of softirqs serviced since boot time, for each
1104of the possible system softirqs. The first column is the total of all
1105softirqs serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
1106softirq.
1107
37515fac 1108
c9de560d
AT
11091.9 Ext4 file system parameters
1110------------------------------
37515fac
TT
1111
1112Information about mounted ext4 file systems can be found in
1113/proc/fs/ext4. Each mounted filesystem will have a directory in
1114/proc/fs/ext4 based on its device name (i.e., /proc/fs/ext4/hdc or
1115/proc/fs/ext4/dm-0). The files in each per-device directory are shown
349888ee 1116in Table 1-12, below.
37515fac 1117
349888ee 1118Table 1-12: Files in /proc/fs/ext4/<devname>
37515fac
TT
1119..............................................................................
1120 File Content
1121 mb_groups details of multiblock allocator buddy cache of free blocks
37515fac
TT
1122..............................................................................
1123
1da177e4
LT
1124
1125------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1126Summary
1127------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1128The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only
1129allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status
1130by reading files in the hierarchy.
1131
1132The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes
1133it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data.
1134------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1135
1136------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1137CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS
1138------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1139
1140------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1141In This Chapter
1142------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1143* Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys
1144* Exploring the files which modify certain parameters
1145* Review of the /proc/sys file tree
1146------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1147
1148
1149A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only
1150a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the
1151kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system,
1152but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a
1153production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that
1154everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to
1155reboot the machine once an error has been made.
1156
1157To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is
1158given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do
1159this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your
1160system boots.
1161
1162The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and
1163general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files
1164can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both
1165documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be
1166very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may
1167change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt
1168review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation.
1169This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2
1170kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel.
1171
760df93e 1172Please see: Documentation/sysctls/ directory for descriptions of these
db0fb184 1173entries.
9d0243bc 1174
760df93e
SF
1175------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1176Summary
1177------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1178Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the
1179need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the
1180/proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo
1181command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings
1182of the kernel.
1183------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9d0243bc 1184
760df93e
SF
1185------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1186CHAPTER 3: PER-PROCESS PARAMETERS
1187------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1da177e4 1188
760df93e 11893.1 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
d7ff0dbf
JFM
1190------------------------------------------------------
1191
0753ba01
KM
1192This file can be used to adjust the score used to select which processes
1193should be killed in an out-of-memory situation. Giving it a high score will
1194increase the likelihood of this process being killed by the oom-killer. Valid
1195values are in the range -16 to +15, plus the special value -17, which disables
1196oom-killing altogether for this process.
d7ff0dbf 1197
9e9e3cbc
EP
1198The process to be killed in an out-of-memory situation is selected among all others
1199based on its badness score. This value equals the original memory size of the process
1200and is then updated according to its CPU time (utime + stime) and the
1201run time (uptime - start time). The longer it runs the smaller is the score.
1202Badness score is divided by the square root of the CPU time and then by
1203the double square root of the run time.
1204
1205Swapped out tasks are killed first. Half of each child's memory size is added to
1206the parent's score if they do not share the same memory. Thus forking servers
1207are the prime candidates to be killed. Having only one 'hungry' child will make
1208parent less preferable than the child.
1209
1210/proc/<pid>/oom_score shows process' current badness score.
1211
1212The following heuristics are then applied:
1213 * if the task was reniced, its score doubles
1214 * superuser or direct hardware access tasks (CAP_SYS_ADMIN, CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
1215 or CAP_SYS_RAWIO) have their score divided by 4
495789a5 1216 * if oom condition happened in one cpuset and checked process does not belong
9e9e3cbc
EP
1217 to it, its score is divided by 8
1218 * the resulting score is multiplied by two to the power of oom_adj, i.e.
1219 points <<= oom_adj when it is positive and
1220 points >>= -(oom_adj) otherwise
1221
1222The task with the highest badness score is then selected and its children
1223are killed, process itself will be killed in an OOM situation when it does
1224not have children or some of them disabled oom like described above.
1225
760df93e 12263.2 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
d7ff0dbf
JFM
1227-------------------------------------------------------------
1228
d7ff0dbf
JFM
1229This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for
1230any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_adj to tune which
1231process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation.
1da177e4 1232
f9c99463 1233
760df93e 12343.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
f9c99463
RK
1235-------------------------------------------------------
1236
1237This file contains IO statistics for each running process
1238
1239Example
1240-------
1241
1242test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat &
1243[1] 3828
1244
1245test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io
1246rchar: 323934931
1247wchar: 323929600
1248syscr: 632687
1249syscw: 632675
1250read_bytes: 0
1251write_bytes: 323932160
1252cancelled_write_bytes: 0
1253
1254
1255Description
1256-----------
1257
1258rchar
1259-----
1260
1261I/O counter: chars read
1262The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This
1263is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread().
1264It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual
1265physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from
1266pagecache)
1267
1268
1269wchar
1270-----
1271
1272I/O counter: chars written
1273The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written
1274to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar.
1275
1276
1277syscr
1278-----
1279
1280I/O counter: read syscalls
1281Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read()
1282and pread().
1283
1284
1285syscw
1286-----
1287
1288I/O counter: write syscalls
1289Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like
1290write() and pwrite().
1291
1292
1293read_bytes
1294----------
1295
1296I/O counter: bytes read
1297Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to
1298be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is
1299accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and
1300CIFS at a later time>
1301
1302
1303write_bytes
1304-----------
1305
1306I/O counter: bytes written
1307Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to
1308the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time.
1309
1310
1311cancelled_write_bytes
1312---------------------
1313
1314The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and
1315then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have
1316been accounted as having caused 1MB of write.
1317In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen,
1318by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task
1319truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted
1320for (in it's write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that
1321from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing
1322that.
1323
1324
1325Note
1326----
1327
1328At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if
1329process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of
1330those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result.
1331
1332
1333More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in
1334Documentation/accounting.
1335
760df93e 13363.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
bb90110d
KH
1337---------------------------------------------------------------
1338When a process is dumped, all anonymous memory is written to a core file as
1339long as the size of the core file isn't limited. But sometimes we don't want
1340to dump some memory segments, for example, huge shared memory. Conversely,
1341sometimes we want to save file-backed memory segments into a core file, not
1342only the individual files.
1343
1344/proc/<pid>/coredump_filter allows you to customize which memory segments
1345will be dumped when the <pid> process is dumped. coredump_filter is a bitmask
1346of memory types. If a bit of the bitmask is set, memory segments of the
1347corresponding memory type are dumped, otherwise they are not dumped.
1348
e575f111 1349The following 7 memory types are supported:
bb90110d
KH
1350 - (bit 0) anonymous private memory
1351 - (bit 1) anonymous shared memory
1352 - (bit 2) file-backed private memory
1353 - (bit 3) file-backed shared memory
b261dfea
HK
1354 - (bit 4) ELF header pages in file-backed private memory areas (it is
1355 effective only if the bit 2 is cleared)
e575f111
KM
1356 - (bit 5) hugetlb private memory
1357 - (bit 6) hugetlb shared memory
bb90110d
KH
1358
1359 Note that MMIO pages such as frame buffer are never dumped and vDSO pages
1360 are always dumped regardless of the bitmask status.
1361
e575f111
KM
1362 Note bit 0-4 doesn't effect any hugetlb memory. hugetlb memory are only
1363 effected by bit 5-6.
1364
1365Default value of coredump_filter is 0x23; this means all anonymous memory
1366segments and hugetlb private memory are dumped.
bb90110d
KH
1367
1368If you don't want to dump all shared memory segments attached to pid 1234,
e575f111 1369write 0x21 to the process's proc file.
bb90110d 1370
e575f111 1371 $ echo 0x21 > /proc/1234/coredump_filter
bb90110d
KH
1372
1373When a new process is created, the process inherits the bitmask status from its
1374parent. It is useful to set up coredump_filter before the program runs.
1375For example:
1376
1377 $ echo 0x7 > /proc/self/coredump_filter
1378 $ ./some_program
1379
760df93e 13803.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
2d4d4864
RP
1381--------------------------------------------------------
1382
1383This file contains lines of the form:
1384
138536 35 98:0 /mnt1 /mnt2 rw,noatime master:1 - ext3 /dev/root rw,errors=continue
1386(1)(2)(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
1387
1388(1) mount ID: unique identifier of the mount (may be reused after umount)
1389(2) parent ID: ID of parent (or of self for the top of the mount tree)
1390(3) major:minor: value of st_dev for files on filesystem
1391(4) root: root of the mount within the filesystem
1392(5) mount point: mount point relative to the process's root
1393(6) mount options: per mount options
1394(7) optional fields: zero or more fields of the form "tag[:value]"
1395(8) separator: marks the end of the optional fields
1396(9) filesystem type: name of filesystem of the form "type[.subtype]"
1397(10) mount source: filesystem specific information or "none"
1398(11) super options: per super block options
1399
1400Parsers should ignore all unrecognised optional fields. Currently the
1401possible optional fields are:
1402
1403shared:X mount is shared in peer group X
1404master:X mount is slave to peer group X
97e7e0f7 1405propagate_from:X mount is slave and receives propagation from peer group X (*)
2d4d4864
RP
1406unbindable mount is unbindable
1407
97e7e0f7
MS
1408(*) X is the closest dominant peer group under the process's root. If
1409X is the immediate master of the mount, or if there's no dominant peer
1410group under the same root, then only the "master:X" field is present
1411and not the "propagate_from:X" field.
1412
2d4d4864
RP
1413For more information on mount propagation see:
1414
1415 Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt
1416
4614a696
JS
1417
14183.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
1419--------------------------------------------------------
1420These files provide a method to access a tasks comm value. It also allows for
1421a task to set its own or one of its thread siblings comm value. The comm value
1422is limited in size compared to the cmdline value, so writing anything longer
1423then the kernel's TASK_COMM_LEN (currently 16 chars) will result in a truncated
1424comm value.