mm: suppress pfn range output for zones without pages
[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
349888ee 8move /proc/sys Shen Feng <shen@cn.fujitsu.com> April 1 2009
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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
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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
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32
33 2 Modifying System Parameters
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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
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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..............................................................................
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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
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139 smaps a extension based on maps, showing the memory consumption of
140 each mapping
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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
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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)
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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
b084d435 167 VmSwap: 0 kB
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168 Threads: 1
169 SigQ: 0/28578
170 SigPnd: 0000000000000000
171 ShdPnd: 0000000000000000
172 SigBlk: 0000000000000000
173 SigIgn: 0000000000000000
174 SigCgt: 0000000000000000
175 CapInh: 00000000fffffeff
176 CapPrm: 0000000000000000
177 CapEff: 0000000000000000
178 CapBnd: ffffffffffffffff
179 voluntary_ctxt_switches: 0
180 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 1
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181
182This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
183the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its
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184information. But you get a more detailed view of the process by reading the
185file /proc/PID/status. It fields are described in table 1-2.
186
187The statm file contains more detailed information about the process
188memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-3. The stat file
189contains details information about the process itself. Its fields are
190explained in Table 1-4.
1da177e4 191
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192(for SMP CONFIG users)
193For making accounting scalable, RSS related information are handled in
194asynchronous manner and the vaule may not be very precise. To see a precise
195snapshot of a moment, you can see /proc/<pid>/smaps file and scan page table.
196It's slow but very precise.
197
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198Table 1-2: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.30-rc7)
199..............................................................................
200 Field Content
201 Name filename of the executable
202 State state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping
203 in an uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie,
204 T is traced or stopped)
205 Tgid thread group ID
206 Pid process id
207 PPid process id of the parent process
208 TracerPid PID of process tracing this process (0 if not)
209 Uid Real, effective, saved set, and file system UIDs
210 Gid Real, effective, saved set, and file system GIDs
211 FDSize number of file descriptor slots currently allocated
212 Groups supplementary group list
213 VmPeak peak virtual memory size
214 VmSize total program size
215 VmLck locked memory size
216 VmHWM peak resident set size ("high water mark")
217 VmRSS size of memory portions
218 VmData size of data, stack, and text segments
219 VmStk size of data, stack, and text segments
220 VmExe size of text segment
221 VmLib size of shared library code
222 VmPTE size of page table entries
b084d435 223 VmSwap size of swap usage (the number of referred swapents)
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224 Threads number of threads
225 SigQ number of signals queued/max. number for queue
226 SigPnd bitmap of pending signals for the thread
227 ShdPnd bitmap of shared pending signals for the process
228 SigBlk bitmap of blocked signals
229 SigIgn bitmap of ignored signals
230 SigCgt bitmap of catched signals
231 CapInh bitmap of inheritable capabilities
232 CapPrm bitmap of permitted capabilities
233 CapEff bitmap of effective capabilities
234 CapBnd bitmap of capabilities bounding set
235 Cpus_allowed mask of CPUs on which this process may run
236 Cpus_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
237 Mems_allowed mask of memory nodes allowed to this process
238 Mems_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
239 voluntary_ctxt_switches number of voluntary context switches
240 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches number of non voluntary context switches
241..............................................................................
1da177e4 242
349888ee 243Table 1-3: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3)
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244..............................................................................
245 Field Content
246 size total program size (pages) (same as VmSize in status)
247 resident size of memory portions (pages) (same as VmRSS in status)
248 shared number of pages that are shared (i.e. backed by a file)
249 trs number of pages that are 'code' (not including libs; broken,
250 includes data segment)
251 lrs number of pages of library (always 0 on 2.6)
252 drs number of pages of data/stack (including libs; broken,
253 includes library text)
254 dt number of dirty pages (always 0 on 2.6)
255..............................................................................
256
18d96779 257
349888ee 258Table 1-4: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.30-rc7)
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259..............................................................................
260 Field Content
261 pid process id
262 tcomm filename of the executable
263 state state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an
264 uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped)
265 ppid process id of the parent process
266 pgrp pgrp of the process
267 sid session id
268 tty_nr tty the process uses
269 tty_pgrp pgrp of the tty
270 flags task flags
271 min_flt number of minor faults
272 cmin_flt number of minor faults with child's
273 maj_flt number of major faults
274 cmaj_flt number of major faults with child's
275 utime user mode jiffies
276 stime kernel mode jiffies
277 cutime user mode jiffies with child's
278 cstime kernel mode jiffies with child's
279 priority priority level
280 nice nice level
281 num_threads number of threads
2e01e00e 282 it_real_value (obsolete, always 0)
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283 start_time time the process started after system boot
284 vsize virtual memory size
285 rss resident set memory size
286 rsslim current limit in bytes on the rss
287 start_code address above which program text can run
288 end_code address below which program text can run
289 start_stack address of the start of the stack
290 esp current value of ESP
291 eip current value of EIP
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292 pending bitmap of pending signals
293 blocked bitmap of blocked signals
294 sigign bitmap of ignored signals
295 sigcatch bitmap of catched signals
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296 wchan address where process went to sleep
297 0 (place holder)
298 0 (place holder)
299 exit_signal signal to send to parent thread on exit
300 task_cpu which CPU the task is scheduled on
301 rt_priority realtime priority
302 policy scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler)
303 blkio_ticks time spent waiting for block IO
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304 gtime guest time of the task in jiffies
305 cgtime guest time of the task children in jiffies
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306..............................................................................
307
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308The /proc/PID/map file containing the currently mapped memory regions and
309their access permissions.
310
311The format is:
312
313address perms offset dev inode pathname
314
31508048000-08049000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
31608049000-0804a000 rw-p 00001000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
3170804a000-0806b000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [heap]
318a7cb1000-a7cb2000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
d899bf7b 319a7cb2000-a7eb2000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [threadstack:001ff4b4]
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320a7eb2000-a7eb3000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
321a7eb3000-a7ed5000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
322a7ed5000-a8008000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
323a8008000-a800a000 r--p 00133000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
324a800a000-a800b000 rw-p 00135000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
325a800b000-a800e000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
326a800e000-a8022000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
327a8022000-a8023000 r--p 00013000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
328a8023000-a8024000 rw-p 00014000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
329a8024000-a8027000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
330a8027000-a8043000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
331a8043000-a8044000 r--p 0001b000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
332a8044000-a8045000 rw-p 0001c000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
333aff35000-aff4a000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [stack]
334ffffe000-fffff000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0 [vdso]
335
336where "address" is the address space in the process that it occupies, "perms"
337is a set of permissions:
338
339 r = read
340 w = write
341 x = execute
342 s = shared
343 p = private (copy on write)
344
345"offset" is the offset into the mapping, "dev" is the device (major:minor), and
346"inode" is the inode on that device. 0 indicates that no inode is associated
347with the memory region, as the case would be with BSS (uninitialized data).
348The "pathname" shows the name associated file for this mapping. If the mapping
349is not associated with a file:
350
351 [heap] = the heap of the program
352 [stack] = the stack of the main process
353 [vdso] = the "virtual dynamic shared object",
354 the kernel system call handler
d899bf7b 355 [threadstack:xxxxxxxx] = the stack of the thread, xxxxxxxx is the stack size
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356
357 or if empty, the mapping is anonymous.
358
359
360The /proc/PID/smaps is an extension based on maps, showing the memory
361consumption for each of the process's mappings. For each of mappings there
362is a series of lines such as the following:
363
36408048000-080bc000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 13130 /bin/bash
365Size: 1084 kB
366Rss: 892 kB
367Pss: 374 kB
368Shared_Clean: 892 kB
369Shared_Dirty: 0 kB
370Private_Clean: 0 kB
371Private_Dirty: 0 kB
372Referenced: 892 kB
373Swap: 0 kB
374KernelPageSize: 4 kB
375MMUPageSize: 4 kB
376
377The first of these lines shows the same information as is displayed for the
378mapping in /proc/PID/maps. The remaining lines show the size of the mapping,
379the amount of the mapping that is currently resident in RAM, the "proportional
380set size” (divide each shared page by the number of processes sharing it), the
381number of clean and dirty shared pages in the mapping, and the number of clean
382and dirty private pages in the mapping. The "Referenced" indicates the amount
383of memory currently marked as referenced or accessed.
384
385This file is only present if the CONFIG_MMU kernel configuration option is
386enabled.
18d96779 387
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388The /proc/PID/clear_refs is used to reset the PG_Referenced and ACCESSED/YOUNG
389bits on both physical and virtual pages associated with a process.
390To clear the bits for all the pages associated with the process
391 > echo 1 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
392
393To clear the bits for the anonymous pages associated with the process
394 > echo 2 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
395
396To clear the bits for the file mapped pages associated with the process
397 > echo 3 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
398Any other value written to /proc/PID/clear_refs will have no effect.
399
400
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4011.2 Kernel data
402---------------
403
404Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about
405the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
349888ee 406/proc and are listed in Table 1-5. Not all of these will be present in your
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407system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
408files are there, and which are missing.
409
349888ee 410Table 1-5: Kernel info in /proc
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411..............................................................................
412 File Content
413 apm Advanced power management info
414 buddyinfo Kernel memory allocator information (see text) (2.5)
415 bus Directory containing bus specific information
416 cmdline Kernel command line
417 cpuinfo Info about the CPU
418 devices Available devices (block and character)
419 dma Used DMS channels
420 filesystems Supported filesystems
421 driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
422 execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4)
423 fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4)
424 fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4)
425 ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem
426 interrupts Interrupt usage
427 iomem Memory map (2.4)
428 ioports I/O port usage
429 irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?)
430 isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4)
431 kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))
432 kmsg Kernel messages
433 ksyms Kernel symbol table
434 loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes
435 locks Kernel locks
436 meminfo Memory info
437 misc Miscellaneous
438 modules List of loaded modules
439 mounts Mounted filesystems
440 net Networking info (see text)
441 partitions Table of partitions known to the system
8b60756a 442 pci Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/,
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443 decoupled by lspci (2.4)
444 rtc Real time clock
445 scsi SCSI info (see text)
446 slabinfo Slab pool info
d3d64df2 447 softirqs softirq usage
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448 stat Overall statistics
449 swaps Swap space utilization
450 sys See chapter 2
451 sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4)
452 tty Info of tty drivers
453 uptime System uptime
454 version Kernel version
455 video bttv info of video resources (2.4)
a47a126a 456 vmallocinfo Show vmalloced areas
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457..............................................................................
458
459You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what
460they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:
461
462 > cat /proc/interrupts
463 CPU0
464 0: 8728810 XT-PIC timer
465 1: 895 XT-PIC keyboard
466 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
467 3: 531695 XT-PIC aha152x
468 4: 2014133 XT-PIC serial
469 5: 44401 XT-PIC pcnet_cs
470 8: 2 XT-PIC rtc
471 11: 8 XT-PIC i82365
472 12: 182918 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
473 13: 1 XT-PIC fpu
474 14: 1232265 XT-PIC ide0
475 15: 7 XT-PIC ide1
476 NMI: 0
477
478In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
479output of a SMP machine):
480
481 > cat /proc/interrupts
482
483 CPU0 CPU1
484 0: 1243498 1214548 IO-APIC-edge timer
485 1: 8949 8958 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
486 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade
487 5: 11286 10161 IO-APIC-edge soundblaster
488 8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
489 9: 27422 27407 IO-APIC-edge 3c503
490 12: 113645 113873 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
491 13: 0 0 XT-PIC fpu
492 14: 22491 24012 IO-APIC-edge ide0
493 15: 2183 2415 IO-APIC-edge ide1
494 17: 30564 30414 IO-APIC-level eth0
495 18: 177 164 IO-APIC-level bttv
496 NMI: 2457961 2457959
497 LOC: 2457882 2457881
498 ERR: 2155
499
500NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI
501(Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups.
502
503LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU.
504
505ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that
506connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected,
507the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big
508problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ.
509
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510In 2.6.2* /proc/interrupts was expanded again. This time the goal was for
511/proc/interrupts to display every IRQ vector in use by the system, not
512just those considered 'most important'. The new vectors are:
513
514 THR -- interrupt raised when a machine check threshold counter
515 (typically counting ECC corrected errors of memory or cache) exceeds
516 a configurable threshold. Only available on some systems.
517
518 TRM -- a thermal event interrupt occurs when a temperature threshold
519 has been exceeded for the CPU. This interrupt may also be generated
520 when the temperature drops back to normal.
521
522 SPU -- a spurious interrupt is some interrupt that was raised then lowered
523 by some IO device before it could be fully processed by the APIC. Hence
524 the APIC sees the interrupt but does not know what device it came from.
525 For this case the APIC will generate the interrupt with a IRQ vector
526 of 0xff. This might also be generated by chipset bugs.
527
528 RES, CAL, TLB -- rescheduling, call and TLB flush interrupts are
529 sent from one CPU to another per the needs of the OS. Typically,
530 their statistics are used by kernel developers and interested users to
19f59460 531 determine the occurrence of interrupts of the given type.
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532
533The above IRQ vectors are displayed only when relevent. For example,
534the threshold vector does not exist on x86_64 platforms. Others are
535suppressed when the system is a uniprocessor. As of this writing, only
536i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays.
537
538Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4.
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539It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
540IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
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541irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and two files; default_smp_affinity and
542prof_cpu_mask.
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543
544For example
545 > ls /proc/irq/
546 0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
18404756 547 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 default_smp_affinity
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548 > ls /proc/irq/0/
549 smp_affinity
550
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551smp_affinity is a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the
552IRQ, you can set it by doing:
1da177e4 553
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554 > echo 1 > /proc/irq/10/smp_affinity
555
556This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo
5575 which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
1da177e4 558
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559The contents of each smp_affinity file is the same by default:
560
561 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
562 ffffffff
1da177e4 563
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564The default_smp_affinity mask applies to all non-active IRQs, which are the
565IRQs which have not yet been allocated/activated, and hence which lack a
566/proc/irq/[0-9]* directory.
1da177e4 567
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568prof_cpu_mask specifies which CPUs are to be profiled by the system wide
569profiler. Default value is ffffffff (all cpus).
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570
571The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin
572between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
573more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the
574best choice for almost everyone.
575
576There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys.
577The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these
578directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the
579directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there
580only when networking support is present in the running kernel.
581
582The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level.
583Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2.
584Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers,
585directory cache, and so on).
586
587..............................................................................
588
589> cat /proc/buddyinfo
590
591Node 0, zone DMA 0 4 5 4 4 3 ...
592Node 0, zone Normal 1 0 0 1 101 8 ...
593Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 0 ...
594
595Memory fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a
596useful tool for helping diagnose these problems. Buddyinfo will give you a
597clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous
598allocation failed.
599
600Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are
601available. In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in
602ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE
603available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc...
604
605..............................................................................
606
607meminfo:
608
609Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory. This
610varies by architecture and compile options. The following is from a
61116GB PIII, which has highmem enabled. You may not have all of these fields.
612
613> cat /proc/meminfo
614
615
616MemTotal: 16344972 kB
617MemFree: 13634064 kB
618Buffers: 3656 kB
619Cached: 1195708 kB
620SwapCached: 0 kB
621Active: 891636 kB
622Inactive: 1077224 kB
623HighTotal: 15597528 kB
624HighFree: 13629632 kB
625LowTotal: 747444 kB
626LowFree: 4432 kB
627SwapTotal: 0 kB
628SwapFree: 0 kB
629Dirty: 968 kB
630Writeback: 0 kB
b88473f7 631AnonPages: 861800 kB
1da177e4 632Mapped: 280372 kB
b88473f7
MS
633Slab: 284364 kB
634SReclaimable: 159856 kB
635SUnreclaim: 124508 kB
636PageTables: 24448 kB
637NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
638Bounce: 0 kB
639WritebackTmp: 0 kB
1da177e4
LT
640CommitLimit: 7669796 kB
641Committed_AS: 100056 kB
1da177e4
LT
642VmallocTotal: 112216 kB
643VmallocUsed: 428 kB
644VmallocChunk: 111088 kB
645
646 MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved
647 bits and the kernel binary code)
648 MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree
649 Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks
650 shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so)
651 Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the
652 pagecache). Doesn't include SwapCached
653 SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but
654 still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it
655 doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already
656 in the swapfile. This saves I/O)
657 Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not
658 reclaimed unless absolutely necessary.
659 Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used. It is more
660 eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes
661 HighTotal:
662 HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory
663 Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or
664 for the pagecache. The kernel must use tricks to access
665 this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem.
666 LowTotal:
667 LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that
3f6dee9b 668 highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the
1da177e4
LT
669 kernel's use for its own data structures. Among many
670 other things, it is where everything from the Slab is
671 allocated. Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem.
672 SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available
673 SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily
674 on the disk
675 Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk
676 Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk
b88473f7 677 AnonPages: Non-file backed pages mapped into userspace page tables
1da177e4 678 Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries
e82443c0 679 Slab: in-kernel data structures cache
b88473f7
MS
680SReclaimable: Part of Slab, that might be reclaimed, such as caches
681 SUnreclaim: Part of Slab, that cannot be reclaimed on memory pressure
682 PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page
683 tables.
684NFS_Unstable: NFS pages sent to the server, but not yet committed to stable
685 storage
686 Bounce: Memory used for block device "bounce buffers"
687WritebackTmp: Memory used by FUSE for temporary writeback buffers
1da177e4
LT
688 CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'),
689 this is the total amount of memory currently available to
690 be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to
691 if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in
692 'vm.overcommit_memory').
693 The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula:
694 CommitLimit = ('vm.overcommit_ratio' * Physical RAM) + Swap
695 For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G
696 of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would
697 yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G.
698 For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation
699 in vm/overcommit-accounting.
700Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system.
701 The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which
702 has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been
703 "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G
704 of memory, but only touches 300M of it will only show up
705 as using 300M of memory even if it has the address space
706 allocated for the entire 1G. This 1G is memory which has
707 been "committed" to by the VM and can be used at any time
708 by the allocating application. With strict overcommit
709 enabled on the system (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'),
710 allocations which would exceed the CommitLimit (detailed
711 above) will not be permitted. This is useful if one needs
712 to guarantee that processes will not fail due to lack of
713 memory once that memory has been successfully allocated.
1da177e4
LT
714VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area
715 VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used
19f59460 716VmallocChunk: largest contiguous block of vmalloc area which is free
1da177e4 717
a47a126a
ED
718..............................................................................
719
720vmallocinfo:
721
722Provides information about vmalloced/vmaped areas. One line per area,
723containing the virtual address range of the area, size in bytes,
724caller information of the creator, and optional information depending
725on the kind of area :
726
727 pages=nr number of pages
728 phys=addr if a physical address was specified
729 ioremap I/O mapping (ioremap() and friends)
730 vmalloc vmalloc() area
731 vmap vmap()ed pages
732 user VM_USERMAP area
733 vpages buffer for pages pointers was vmalloced (huge area)
734 N<node>=nr (Only on NUMA kernels)
735 Number of pages allocated on memory node <node>
736
737> cat /proc/vmallocinfo
7380xffffc20000000000-0xffffc20000201000 2101248 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
739 /0x2c0 pages=512 vmalloc N0=128 N1=128 N2=128 N3=128
7400xffffc20000201000-0xffffc20000302000 1052672 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
741 /0x2c0 pages=256 vmalloc N0=64 N1=64 N2=64 N3=64
7420xffffc20000302000-0xffffc20000304000 8192 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
743 phys=7fee8000 ioremap
7440xffffc20000304000-0xffffc20000307000 12288 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
745 phys=7fee7000 ioremap
7460xffffc2000031d000-0xffffc2000031f000 8192 init_vdso_vars+0x112/0x210
7470xffffc2000031f000-0xffffc2000032b000 49152 cramfs_uncompress_init+0x2e ...
748 /0x80 pages=11 vmalloc N0=3 N1=3 N2=2 N3=3
7490xffffc2000033a000-0xffffc2000033d000 12288 sys_swapon+0x640/0xac0 ...
750 pages=2 vmalloc N1=2
7510xffffc20000347000-0xffffc2000034c000 20480 xt_alloc_table_info+0xfe ...
752 /0x130 [x_tables] pages=4 vmalloc N0=4
7530xffffffffa0000000-0xffffffffa000f000 61440 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
754 pages=14 vmalloc N2=14
7550xffffffffa000f000-0xffffffffa0014000 20480 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
756 pages=4 vmalloc N1=4
7570xffffffffa0014000-0xffffffffa0017000 12288 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
758 pages=2 vmalloc N1=2
7590xffffffffa0017000-0xffffffffa0022000 45056 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
760 pages=10 vmalloc N0=10
1da177e4 761
d3d64df2
KK
762..............................................................................
763
764softirqs:
765
766Provides counts of softirq handlers serviced since boot time, for each cpu.
767
768> cat /proc/softirqs
769 CPU0 CPU1 CPU2 CPU3
770 HI: 0 0 0 0
771 TIMER: 27166 27120 27097 27034
772 NET_TX: 0 0 0 17
773 NET_RX: 42 0 0 39
774 BLOCK: 0 0 107 1121
775 TASKLET: 0 0 0 290
776 SCHED: 27035 26983 26971 26746
777 HRTIMER: 0 0 0 0
778 RCU: 1678 1769 2178 2250
779
780
1da177e4
LT
7811.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
782----------------------------
783
784The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which
785the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the
786file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory
787in the controller specific subtree.
788
789The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the
790IDE devices:
791
792 > cat /proc/ide/drivers
793 ide-cdrom version 4.53
794 ide-disk version 1.08
795
796More detailed information can be found in the controller specific
797subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these
349888ee 798directories contains the files shown in table 1-6.
1da177e4
LT
799
800
349888ee 801Table 1-6: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide?
1da177e4
LT
802..............................................................................
803 File Content
804 channel IDE channel (0 or 1)
805 config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)
806 mate Mate name
807 model Type/Chipset of IDE controller
808..............................................................................
809
810Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the
349888ee 811controllers directory. The files listed in table 1-7 are contained in these
1da177e4
LT
812directories.
813
814
349888ee 815Table 1-7: IDE device information
1da177e4
LT
816..............................................................................
817 File Content
818 cache The cache
819 capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)
820 driver driver and version
821 geometry physical and logical geometry
822 identify device identify block
823 media media type
824 model device identifier
825 settings device setup
826 smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds
827 smart_values IDE disk management values
828..............................................................................
829
830The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of
831the drive parameters:
832
833 # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings
834 name value min max mode
835 ---- ----- --- --- ----
836 bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw
837 bios_head 255 0 255 rw
838 bios_sect 63 0 63 rw
839 breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw
840 bswap 0 0 1 r
841 file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw
842 io_32bit 0 0 3 rw
843 keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
844 max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw
845 multcount 0 0 8 rw
846 nice1 1 0 1 rw
847 nowerr 0 0 1 rw
848 pio_mode write-only 0 255 w
849 slow 0 0 1 rw
850 unmaskirq 0 0 1 rw
851 using_dma 0 0 1 rw
852
853
8541.4 Networking info in /proc/net
855--------------------------------
856
349888ee 857The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1-8 shows the
1da177e4 858additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to
349888ee 859support this. Table 1-9 lists the files and their meaning.
1da177e4
LT
860
861
349888ee 862Table 1-8: IPv6 info in /proc/net
1da177e4
LT
863..............................................................................
864 File Content
865 udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6)
866 tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6)
867 raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6)
868 igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)
869 if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses
870 ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6
871 rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics
872 sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6)
873 snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6)
874..............................................................................
875
876
349888ee 877Table 1-9: Network info in /proc/net
1da177e4
LT
878..............................................................................
879 File Content
880 arp Kernel ARP table
881 dev network devices with statistics
882 dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too
883 (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound
884 addresses).
885 dev_stat network device status
886 ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage
887 ip_fwnames Firewall chain names
888 ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables
889 ip_masquerade Major masquerading table
890 netstat Network statistics
891 raw raw device statistics
892 route Kernel routing table
893 rpc Directory containing rpc info
894 rt_cache Routing cache
895 snmp SNMP data
896 sockstat Socket statistics
897 tcp TCP sockets
898 tr_rif Token ring RIF routing table
899 udp UDP sockets
900 unix UNIX domain sockets
901 wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)
902 igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined
903 psched Global packet scheduler parameters.
904 netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets
905 ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces
906 ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache
907..............................................................................
908
909You can use this information to see which network devices are available in
910your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices:
911
912 > cat /proc/net/dev
913 Inter-|Receive |[...
914 face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[...
915 lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...
916 ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [...
917 eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [...
918
919 ...] Transmit
920 ...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
921 ...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0
922 ...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0
923 ...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0
924
925In addition, each Channel Bond interface has it's own directory. For
926example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/.
927It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the
928current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how
929many times the slaves link has failed.
930
9311.5 SCSI info
932-------------
933
934If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory
935named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list
936of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi:
937
938 >cat /proc/scsi/scsi
939 Attached devices:
940 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
941 Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0
942 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
943 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
944 Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S Rev: 1.04
945 Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
946
947
948The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in
949the system. These files contain information about the controller, including
950the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is
951dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec
952AHA-2940 SCSI adapter:
953
954 > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0
955
956 Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4
957 Compile Options:
958 TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
959 AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled
960 AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5
961 Adapter Configuration:
962 SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter
963 Ultra Wide Controller
964 PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000
965 Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
966 Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
967 IRQ: 10
968 SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,
969 Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
970 Interrupts: 160328
971 BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6
972 Adapter Control Word: 0x005b
973 Extended Translation: Enabled
974 Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff
975 Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001
976 Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
977 Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
978 Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
979 Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:
980 {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
981 Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:
982 {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
983 Statistics:
984 (scsi0:0:0:0)
985 Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8
986 Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)
987 Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)
988 (scsi0:0:6:0)
989 Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
990 Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)
991 Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)
992
993
9941.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
995---------------------------------------
996
997The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of
998your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port
999number (0,1,2,...).
1000
349888ee 1001These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-10.
1da177e4
LT
1002
1003
349888ee 1004Table 1-10: Files in /proc/parport
1da177e4
LT
1005..............................................................................
1006 File Content
1007 autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired.
1008 devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the
1009 name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear
1010 against any).
1011 hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.
1012 irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate
1013 file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ
1014 number or none).
1015..............................................................................
1016
10171.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
1018-------------------------
1019
1020Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the
1021directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in
349888ee 1022this directory, as shown in Table 1-11.
1da177e4
LT
1023
1024
349888ee 1025Table 1-11: Files in /proc/tty
1da177e4
LT
1026..............................................................................
1027 File Content
1028 drivers list of drivers and their usage
1029 ldiscs registered line disciplines
1030 driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines
1031..............................................................................
1032
1033To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file
1034/proc/tty/drivers:
1035
1036 > cat /proc/tty/drivers
1037 pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0-255 pty:slave
1038 pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0-255 pty:master
1039 pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0-255 pty:slave
1040 pty_master /dev/pty 2 0-255 pty:master
1041 serial /dev/cua 5 64-67 serial:callout
1042 serial /dev/ttyS 4 64-67 serial
1043 /dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster
1044 /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system
1045 /dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console
1046 /dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty
1047 unknown /dev/tty 4 1-63 console
1048
1049
10501.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
1051-------------------------------------------------
1052
1053Various pieces of information about kernel activity are available in the
1054/proc/stat file. All of the numbers reported in this file are aggregates
1055since the system first booted. For a quick look, simply cat the file:
1056
1057 > cat /proc/stat
c574358e
ED
1058 cpu 2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 0 0
1059 cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 0 0
1060 cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 0 0
1da177e4
LT
1061 intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...]
1062 ctxt 1990473
1063 btime 1062191376
1064 processes 2915
1065 procs_running 1
1066 procs_blocked 0
d3d64df2 1067 softirq 183433 0 21755 12 39 1137 231 21459 2263
1da177e4
LT
1068
1069The very first "cpu" line aggregates the numbers in all of the other "cpuN"
1070lines. These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing
1071different kinds of work. Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a
1072second). The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right:
1073
1074- user: normal processes executing in user mode
1075- nice: niced processes executing in user mode
1076- system: processes executing in kernel mode
1077- idle: twiddling thumbs
1078- iowait: waiting for I/O to complete
1079- irq: servicing interrupts
1080- softirq: servicing softirqs
b68f2c3a 1081- steal: involuntary wait
ce0e7b28
RO
1082- guest: running a normal guest
1083- guest_nice: running a niced guest
1da177e4
LT
1084
1085The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts serviced since boot time, for each
1086of the possible system interrupts. The first column is the total of all
1087interrupts serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
1088interrupt.
1089
1090The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs.
1091
1092The "btime" line gives the time at which the system booted, in seconds since
1093the Unix epoch.
1094
1095The "processes" line gives the number of processes and threads created, which
1096includes (but is not limited to) those created by calls to the fork() and
1097clone() system calls.
1098
e3cc2226
LGE
1099The "procs_running" line gives the total number of threads that are
1100running or ready to run (i.e., the total number of runnable threads).
1da177e4
LT
1101
1102The "procs_blocked" line gives the number of processes currently blocked,
1103waiting for I/O to complete.
1104
d3d64df2
KK
1105The "softirq" line gives counts of softirqs serviced since boot time, for each
1106of the possible system softirqs. The first column is the total of all
1107softirqs serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
1108softirq.
1109
37515fac 1110
c9de560d
AT
11111.9 Ext4 file system parameters
1112------------------------------
37515fac
TT
1113
1114Information about mounted ext4 file systems can be found in
1115/proc/fs/ext4. Each mounted filesystem will have a directory in
1116/proc/fs/ext4 based on its device name (i.e., /proc/fs/ext4/hdc or
1117/proc/fs/ext4/dm-0). The files in each per-device directory are shown
349888ee 1118in Table 1-12, below.
37515fac 1119
349888ee 1120Table 1-12: Files in /proc/fs/ext4/<devname>
37515fac
TT
1121..............................................................................
1122 File Content
1123 mb_groups details of multiblock allocator buddy cache of free blocks
37515fac
TT
1124..............................................................................
1125
1da177e4
LT
1126
1127------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1128Summary
1129------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1130The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only
1131allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status
1132by reading files in the hierarchy.
1133
1134The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes
1135it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data.
1136------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1137
1138------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1139CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS
1140------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1141
1142------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1143In This Chapter
1144------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1145* Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys
1146* Exploring the files which modify certain parameters
1147* Review of the /proc/sys file tree
1148------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1149
1150
1151A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only
1152a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the
1153kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system,
1154but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a
1155production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that
1156everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to
1157reboot the machine once an error has been made.
1158
1159To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is
1160given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do
1161this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your
1162system boots.
1163
1164The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and
1165general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files
1166can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both
1167documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be
1168very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may
1169change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt
1170review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation.
1171This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2
1172kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel.
1173
760df93e 1174Please see: Documentation/sysctls/ directory for descriptions of these
db0fb184 1175entries.
9d0243bc 1176
760df93e
SF
1177------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1178Summary
1179------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1180Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the
1181need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the
1182/proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo
1183command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings
1184of the kernel.
1185------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9d0243bc 1186
760df93e
SF
1187------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1188CHAPTER 3: PER-PROCESS PARAMETERS
1189------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1da177e4 1190
760df93e 11913.1 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
d7ff0dbf
JFM
1192------------------------------------------------------
1193
0753ba01
KM
1194This file can be used to adjust the score used to select which processes
1195should be killed in an out-of-memory situation. Giving it a high score will
1196increase the likelihood of this process being killed by the oom-killer. Valid
1197values are in the range -16 to +15, plus the special value -17, which disables
1198oom-killing altogether for this process.
d7ff0dbf 1199
9e9e3cbc
EP
1200The process to be killed in an out-of-memory situation is selected among all others
1201based on its badness score. This value equals the original memory size of the process
1202and is then updated according to its CPU time (utime + stime) and the
1203run time (uptime - start time). The longer it runs the smaller is the score.
1204Badness score is divided by the square root of the CPU time and then by
1205the double square root of the run time.
1206
1207Swapped out tasks are killed first. Half of each child's memory size is added to
1208the parent's score if they do not share the same memory. Thus forking servers
1209are the prime candidates to be killed. Having only one 'hungry' child will make
1210parent less preferable than the child.
1211
1212/proc/<pid>/oom_score shows process' current badness score.
1213
1214The following heuristics are then applied:
1215 * if the task was reniced, its score doubles
1216 * superuser or direct hardware access tasks (CAP_SYS_ADMIN, CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
1217 or CAP_SYS_RAWIO) have their score divided by 4
495789a5 1218 * if oom condition happened in one cpuset and checked process does not belong
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EP
1219 to it, its score is divided by 8
1220 * the resulting score is multiplied by two to the power of oom_adj, i.e.
1221 points <<= oom_adj when it is positive and
1222 points >>= -(oom_adj) otherwise
1223
1224The task with the highest badness score is then selected and its children
1225are killed, process itself will be killed in an OOM situation when it does
1226not have children or some of them disabled oom like described above.
1227
760df93e 12283.2 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
d7ff0dbf
JFM
1229-------------------------------------------------------------
1230
d7ff0dbf
JFM
1231This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for
1232any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_adj to tune which
1233process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation.
1da177e4 1234
f9c99463 1235
760df93e 12363.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
f9c99463
RK
1237-------------------------------------------------------
1238
1239This file contains IO statistics for each running process
1240
1241Example
1242-------
1243
1244test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat &
1245[1] 3828
1246
1247test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io
1248rchar: 323934931
1249wchar: 323929600
1250syscr: 632687
1251syscw: 632675
1252read_bytes: 0
1253write_bytes: 323932160
1254cancelled_write_bytes: 0
1255
1256
1257Description
1258-----------
1259
1260rchar
1261-----
1262
1263I/O counter: chars read
1264The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This
1265is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread().
1266It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual
1267physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from
1268pagecache)
1269
1270
1271wchar
1272-----
1273
1274I/O counter: chars written
1275The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written
1276to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar.
1277
1278
1279syscr
1280-----
1281
1282I/O counter: read syscalls
1283Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read()
1284and pread().
1285
1286
1287syscw
1288-----
1289
1290I/O counter: write syscalls
1291Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like
1292write() and pwrite().
1293
1294
1295read_bytes
1296----------
1297
1298I/O counter: bytes read
1299Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to
1300be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is
1301accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and
1302CIFS at a later time>
1303
1304
1305write_bytes
1306-----------
1307
1308I/O counter: bytes written
1309Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to
1310the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time.
1311
1312
1313cancelled_write_bytes
1314---------------------
1315
1316The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and
1317then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have
1318been accounted as having caused 1MB of write.
1319In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen,
1320by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task
1321truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted
1322for (in it's write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that
1323from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing
1324that.
1325
1326
1327Note
1328----
1329
1330At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if
1331process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of
1332those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result.
1333
1334
1335More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in
1336Documentation/accounting.
1337
760df93e 13383.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
bb90110d
KH
1339---------------------------------------------------------------
1340When a process is dumped, all anonymous memory is written to a core file as
1341long as the size of the core file isn't limited. But sometimes we don't want
1342to dump some memory segments, for example, huge shared memory. Conversely,
1343sometimes we want to save file-backed memory segments into a core file, not
1344only the individual files.
1345
1346/proc/<pid>/coredump_filter allows you to customize which memory segments
1347will be dumped when the <pid> process is dumped. coredump_filter is a bitmask
1348of memory types. If a bit of the bitmask is set, memory segments of the
1349corresponding memory type are dumped, otherwise they are not dumped.
1350
e575f111 1351The following 7 memory types are supported:
bb90110d
KH
1352 - (bit 0) anonymous private memory
1353 - (bit 1) anonymous shared memory
1354 - (bit 2) file-backed private memory
1355 - (bit 3) file-backed shared memory
b261dfea
HK
1356 - (bit 4) ELF header pages in file-backed private memory areas (it is
1357 effective only if the bit 2 is cleared)
e575f111
KM
1358 - (bit 5) hugetlb private memory
1359 - (bit 6) hugetlb shared memory
bb90110d
KH
1360
1361 Note that MMIO pages such as frame buffer are never dumped and vDSO pages
1362 are always dumped regardless of the bitmask status.
1363
e575f111
KM
1364 Note bit 0-4 doesn't effect any hugetlb memory. hugetlb memory are only
1365 effected by bit 5-6.
1366
1367Default value of coredump_filter is 0x23; this means all anonymous memory
1368segments and hugetlb private memory are dumped.
bb90110d
KH
1369
1370If you don't want to dump all shared memory segments attached to pid 1234,
e575f111 1371write 0x21 to the process's proc file.
bb90110d 1372
e575f111 1373 $ echo 0x21 > /proc/1234/coredump_filter
bb90110d
KH
1374
1375When a new process is created, the process inherits the bitmask status from its
1376parent. It is useful to set up coredump_filter before the program runs.
1377For example:
1378
1379 $ echo 0x7 > /proc/self/coredump_filter
1380 $ ./some_program
1381
760df93e 13823.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
2d4d4864
RP
1383--------------------------------------------------------
1384
1385This file contains lines of the form:
1386
138736 35 98:0 /mnt1 /mnt2 rw,noatime master:1 - ext3 /dev/root rw,errors=continue
1388(1)(2)(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
1389
1390(1) mount ID: unique identifier of the mount (may be reused after umount)
1391(2) parent ID: ID of parent (or of self for the top of the mount tree)
1392(3) major:minor: value of st_dev for files on filesystem
1393(4) root: root of the mount within the filesystem
1394(5) mount point: mount point relative to the process's root
1395(6) mount options: per mount options
1396(7) optional fields: zero or more fields of the form "tag[:value]"
1397(8) separator: marks the end of the optional fields
1398(9) filesystem type: name of filesystem of the form "type[.subtype]"
1399(10) mount source: filesystem specific information or "none"
1400(11) super options: per super block options
1401
1402Parsers should ignore all unrecognised optional fields. Currently the
1403possible optional fields are:
1404
1405shared:X mount is shared in peer group X
1406master:X mount is slave to peer group X
97e7e0f7 1407propagate_from:X mount is slave and receives propagation from peer group X (*)
2d4d4864
RP
1408unbindable mount is unbindable
1409
97e7e0f7
MS
1410(*) X is the closest dominant peer group under the process's root. If
1411X is the immediate master of the mount, or if there's no dominant peer
1412group under the same root, then only the "master:X" field is present
1413and not the "propagate_from:X" field.
1414
2d4d4864
RP
1415For more information on mount propagation see:
1416
1417 Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt
1418
4614a696
JS
1419
14203.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
1421--------------------------------------------------------
1422These files provide a method to access a tasks comm value. It also allows for
1423a task to set its own or one of its thread siblings comm value. The comm value
1424is limited in size compared to the cmdline value, so writing anything longer
1425then the kernel's TASK_COMM_LEN (currently 16 chars) will result in a truncated
1426comm value.