path: root/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt

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                       T H E  /proc   F I L E S Y S T E M
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/proc/sys         Terrehon Bowden <terrehon@pacbell.net>        October 7 1999
                  Bodo Bauer <bb@ricochet.net>

2.4.x update	  Jorge Nerin <comandante@zaralinux.com>      November 14 2000
move /proc/sys	  Shen Feng <shen@cn.fujitsu.com>		    April 1 2009
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Version 1.3                                              Kernel version 2.2.12
					      Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4
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Table of Contents
-----------------

  0     Preface
  0.1	Introduction/Credits
  0.2	Legal Stuff

  1	Collecting System Information
  1.1	Process-Specific Subdirectories
  1.2	Kernel data
  1.3	IDE devices in /proc/ide
  1.4	Networking info in /proc/net
  1.5	SCSI info
  1.6	Parallel port info in /proc/parport
  1.7	TTY info in /proc/tty
  1.8	Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
  1.9 Ext4 file system parameters

  2	Modifying System Parameters

  3	Per-Process Parameters
  3.1	/proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
  3.2	/proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
  3.3	/proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
  3.4	/proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
  3.5	/proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preface
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

0.1 Introduction/Credits
------------------------

This documentation is  part of a soon (or  so we hope) to be  released book on
the SuSE  Linux distribution. As  there is  no complete documentation  for the
/proc file system and we've used  many freely available sources to write these
chapters, it  seems only fair  to give the work  back to the  Linux community.
This work is  based on the 2.2.*  kernel version and the  upcoming 2.4.*. I'm
afraid it's still far from complete, but we  hope it will be useful. As far as
we know, it is the first 'all-in-one' document about the /proc file system. It
is focused  on the Intel  x86 hardware,  so if you  are looking for  PPC, ARM,
SPARC, AXP, etc., features, you probably  won't find what you are looking for.
It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols - sorry. But
additions and patches  are welcome and will  be added to this  document if you
mail them to Bodo.

We'd like  to  thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of
other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a
special thank  you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily
to create  this  document,  as well as the additional information he provided.
Thanks to  everybody  else  who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel
and helped create a great piece of software... :)

If you  have  any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to
contact Bodo  Bauer  at  bb@ricochet.net.  We'll  be happy to add them to this
document.

The   latest   version    of   this   document   is    available   online   at
http://skaro.nightcrawler.com/~bb/Docs/Proc as HTML version.

If  the above  direction does  not works  for you,  ypu could  try the  kernel
mailing  list  at  linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org  and/or try  to  reach  me  at
comandante@zaralinux.com.

0.2 Legal Stuff
---------------

We don't  guarantee  the  correctness  of this document, and if you come to us
complaining about  how  you  screwed  up  your  system  because  of  incorrect
documentation, we won't feel responsible...

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CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In This Chapter
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Investigating  the  properties  of  the  pseudo  file  system  /proc and its
  ability to provide information on the running Linux system
* Examining /proc's structure
* Uncovering  various  information  about the kernel and the processes running
  on the system
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The proc  file  system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the
kernel. It  can  be  used to obtain information about the system and to change
certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl).

First, we'll  take  a  look  at the read-only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we
show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings.

1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
-----------------------------------

The directory  /proc  contains  (among other things) one subdirectory for each
process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID).

The link  self  points  to  the  process reading the file system. Each process
subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1-1.


Table 1-1: Process specific entries in /proc 
..............................................................................
 File		Content
 clear_refs	Clears page referenced bits shown in smaps output
 cmdline	Command line arguments
 cpu		Current and last cpu in which it was executed	(2.4)(smp)
 cwd		Link to the current working directory
 environ	Values of environment variables
 exe		Link to the executable of this process
 fd		Directory, which contains all file descriptors
 maps		Memory maps to executables and library files	(2.4)
 mem		Memory held by this process
 root		Link to the root directory of this process
 stat		Process status
 statm		Process memory status information
 status		Process status in human readable form
 wchan		If CONFIG_KALLSYMS is set, a pre-decoded wchan
 stack		Report full stack trace, enable via CONFIG_STACKTRACE
 smaps		Extension based on maps, the rss size for each mapped file
..............................................................................

For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is
read the file /proc/PID/status:

  >cat /proc/self/status 
  Name:   cat 
  State:  R (running) 
  Pid:    5452 
  PPid:   743 
  TracerPid:      0						(2.4)
  Uid:    501     501     501     501 
  Gid:    100     100     100     100 
  Groups: 100 14 16 
  VmSize:     1112 kB 
  VmLck:         0 kB 
  VmRSS:       348 kB 
  VmData:       24 kB 
  VmStk:        12 kB 
  VmExe:         8 kB 
  VmLib:      1044 kB 
  SigPnd: 0000000000000000 
  SigBlk: 0000000000000000 
  SigIgn: 0000000000000000 
  SigCgt: 0000000000000000 
  CapInh: 00000000fffffeff 
  CapPrm: 0000000000000000 
  CapEff: 0000000000000000 


This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
the ps  command.  In  fact,  ps  uses  the  proc  file  system  to  obtain its
information. The  statm  file  contains  more  detailed  information about the
process memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-2.  The stat
file contains details information about the process itself.  Its fields are
explained in Table 1-3.


Table 1-2: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3)
..............................................................................
 Field    Content
 size     total program size (pages)		(same as VmSize in status)
 resident size of memory portions (pages)	(same as VmRSS in status)
 shared   number of pages that are shared	(i.e. backed by a file)
 trs      number of pages that are 'code'	(not including libs; broken,
							includes data segment)
 lrs      number of pages of library		(always 0 on 2.6)
 drs      number of pages of data/stack		(including libs; broken,
							includes library text)
 dt       number of dirty pages			(always 0 on 2.6)
..............................................................................


Table 1-3: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.22-rc3)
..............................................................................
 Field          Content
  pid           process id
  tcomm         filename of the executable
  state         state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an
                uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped)
  ppid          process id of the parent process
  pgrp          pgrp of the process
  sid           session id
  tty_nr        tty the process uses
  tty_pgrp      pgrp of the tty
  flags         task flags
  min_flt       number of minor faults
  cmin_flt      number of minor faults with child's
  maj_flt       number of major faults
  cmaj_flt      number of major faults with child's
  utime         user mode jiffies
  stime         kernel mode jiffies
  cutime        user mode jiffies with child's
  cstime        kernel mode jiffies with child's
  priority      priority level
  nice          nice level
  num_threads   number of threads
  it_real_value	(obsolete, always 0)
  start_time    time the process started after system boot
  vsize         virtual memory size
  rss           resident set memory size
  rsslim        current limit in bytes on the rss
  start_code    address above which program text can run
  end_code      address below which program text can run
  start_stack   address of the start of the stack
  esp           current value of ESP
  eip           current value of EIP
  pending       bitmap of pending signals (obsolete)
  blocked       bitmap of blocked signals (obsolete)
  sigign        bitmap of ignored signals (obsolete)
  sigcatch      bitmap of catched signals (obsolete)
  wchan         address where process went to sleep
  0             (place holder)
  0             (place holder)
  exit_signal   signal to send to parent thread on exit
  task_cpu      which CPU the task is scheduled on
  rt_priority   realtime priority
  policy        scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler)
  blkio_ticks   time spent waiting for block IO
..............................................................................


1.2 Kernel data
---------------

Similar to  the  process entries, the kernel data files give information about
the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
/proc and  are  listed  in Table 1-4. Not all of these will be present in your
system. It  depends  on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
files are there, and which are missing.

Table 1-4: Kernel info in /proc
..............................................................................
 File        Content                                           
 apm         Advanced power management info                    
 buddyinfo   Kernel memory allocator information (see text)	(2.5)
 bus         Directory containing bus specific information     
 cmdline     Kernel command line                               
 cpuinfo     Info about the CPU                                
 devices     Available devices (block and character)           
 dma         Used DMS channels                                 
 filesystems Supported filesystems                             
 driver	     Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
 execdomains Execdomains, related to security			(2.4)
 fb	     Frame Buffer devices				(2.4)
 fs	     File system parameters, currently nfs/exports	(2.4)
 ide         Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem 
 interrupts  Interrupt usage                                   
 iomem	     Memory map						(2.4)
 ioports     I/O port usage                                    
 irq	     Masks for irq to cpu affinity			(2.4)(smp?)
 isapnp	     ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info				(2.4)
 kcore       Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))   
 kmsg        Kernel messages                                   
 ksyms       Kernel symbol table                               
 loadavg     Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes                
 locks       Kernel locks                                      
 meminfo     Memory info                                       
 misc        Miscellaneous                                     
 modules     List of loaded modules                            
 mounts      Mounted filesystems                               
 net         Networking info (see text)                        
 partitions  Table of partitions known to the system           
 pci	     Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/,
             decoupled by lspci					(2.4)
 rtc         Real time clock                                   
 scsi        SCSI info (see text)                              
 slabinfo    Slab pool info                                    
 stat        Overall statistics                                
 swaps       Swap space utilization                            
 sys         See chapter 2                                     
 sysvipc     Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm)		(2.4)
 tty	     Info of tty drivers
 uptime      System uptime                                     
 version     Kernel version                                    
 video	     bttv info of video resources			(2.4)
 vmallocinfo Show vmalloced areas
..............................................................................

You can,  for  example,  check  which interrupts are currently in use and what
they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:

  > cat /proc/interrupts 
             CPU0        
    0:    8728810          XT-PIC  timer 
    1:        895          XT-PIC  keyboard 
    2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade 
    3:     531695          XT-PIC  aha152x 
    4:    2014133          XT-PIC  serial 
    5:      44401          XT-PIC  pcnet_cs 
    8:          2          XT-PIC  rtc 
   11:          8          XT-PIC  i82365 
   12:     182918          XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse 
   13:          1          XT-PIC  fpu 
   14:    1232265          XT-PIC  ide0 
   15:          7          XT-PIC  ide1 
  NMI:          0 

In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
output of a SMP machine):

  > cat /proc/interrupts 

             CPU0       CPU1       
    0:    1243498    1214548    IO-APIC-edge  timer
    1: