1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 T H E /proc F I L E S Y S T E M
3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 /proc/sys Terrehon Bowden <terrehon@pacbell.net> October 7 1999
5 Bodo Bauer <bb@ricochet.net>
7 2.4.x update Jorge Nerin <comandante@zaralinux.com> November 14 2000
8 move /proc/sys Shen Feng <shen@cn.fujitsu.com> April 1 2009
9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 Version 1.3 Kernel version 2.2.12
11 Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4
12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13 fixes/update part 1.1 Stefani Seibold <stefani@seibold.net> June 9 2009
19 0.1 Introduction/Credits
22 1 Collecting System Information
23 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
25 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
26 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
28 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
29 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
30 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
31 1.9 Ext4 file system parameters
33 2 Modifying System Parameters
35 3 Per-Process Parameters
36 3.1 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj & /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj - Adjust the oom-killer
38 3.2 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
39 3.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
40 3.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
41 3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
42 3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
43 3.7 /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/children - Information about task children
44 3.8 /proc/<pid>/fdinfo/<fd> - Information about opened file
49 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
51 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
53 0.1 Introduction/Credits
54 ------------------------
56 This documentation is part of a soon (or so we hope) to be released book on
57 the SuSE Linux distribution. As there is no complete documentation for the
58 /proc file system and we've used many freely available sources to write these
59 chapters, it seems only fair to give the work back to the Linux community.
60 This work is based on the 2.2.* kernel version and the upcoming 2.4.*. I'm
61 afraid it's still far from complete, but we hope it will be useful. As far as
62 we know, it is the first 'all-in-one' document about the /proc file system. It
63 is focused on the Intel x86 hardware, so if you are looking for PPC, ARM,
64 SPARC, AXP, etc., features, you probably won't find what you are looking for.
65 It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols - sorry. But
66 additions and patches are welcome and will be added to this document if you
69 We'd like to thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of
70 other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a
71 special thank you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily
72 to create this document, as well as the additional information he provided.
73 Thanks to everybody else who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel
74 and helped create a great piece of software... :)
76 If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to
77 contact Bodo Bauer at bb@ricochet.net. We'll be happy to add them to this
80 The latest version of this document is available online at
81 http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/proc.html
83 If the above direction does not works for you, you could try the kernel
84 mailing list at linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org and/or try to reach me at
85 comandante@zaralinux.com.
90 We don't guarantee the correctness of this document, and if you come to us
91 complaining about how you screwed up your system because of incorrect
92 documentation, we won't feel responsible...
94 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
95 CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION
96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
98 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
101 * Investigating the properties of the pseudo file system /proc and its
102 ability to provide information on the running Linux system
103 * Examining /proc's structure
104 * Uncovering various information about the kernel and the processes running
106 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
109 The proc file system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the
110 kernel. It can be used to obtain information about the system and to change
111 certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl).
113 First, we'll take a look at the read-only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we
114 show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings.
116 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
117 -----------------------------------
119 The directory /proc contains (among other things) one subdirectory for each
120 process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID).
122 The link self points to the process reading the file system. Each process
123 subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1-1.
126 Table 1-1: Process specific entries in /proc
127 ..............................................................................
129 clear_refs Clears page referenced bits shown in smaps output
130 cmdline Command line arguments
131 cpu Current and last cpu in which it was executed (2.4)(smp)
132 cwd Link to the current working directory
133 environ Values of environment variables
134 exe Link to the executable of this process
135 fd Directory, which contains all file descriptors
136 maps Memory maps to executables and library files (2.4)
137 mem Memory held by this process
138 root Link to the root directory of this process
140 statm Process memory status information
141 status Process status in human readable form
142 wchan If CONFIG_KALLSYMS is set, a pre-decoded wchan
144 stack Report full stack trace, enable via CONFIG_STACKTRACE
145 smaps a extension based on maps, showing the memory consumption of
146 each mapping and flags associated with it
147 ..............................................................................
149 For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is
150 read the file /proc/PID/status:
152 >cat /proc/self/status
176 SigPnd: 0000000000000000
177 ShdPnd: 0000000000000000
178 SigBlk: 0000000000000000
179 SigIgn: 0000000000000000
180 SigCgt: 0000000000000000
181 CapInh: 00000000fffffeff
182 CapPrm: 0000000000000000
183 CapEff: 0000000000000000
184 CapBnd: ffffffffffffffff
186 voluntary_ctxt_switches: 0
187 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 1
189 This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
190 the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its
191 information. But you get a more detailed view of the process by reading the
192 file /proc/PID/status. It fields are described in table 1-2.
194 The statm file contains more detailed information about the process
195 memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-3. The stat file
196 contains details information about the process itself. Its fields are
197 explained in Table 1-4.
199 (for SMP CONFIG users)
200 For making accounting scalable, RSS related information are handled in
201 asynchronous manner and the vaule may not be very precise. To see a precise
202 snapshot of a moment, you can see /proc/<pid>/smaps file and scan page table.
203 It's slow but very precise.
205 Table 1-2: Contents of the status files (as of 2.6.30-rc7)
206 ..............................................................................
208 Name filename of the executable
209 State state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping
210 in an uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie,
211 T is traced or stopped)
214 PPid process id of the parent process
215 TracerPid PID of process tracing this process (0 if not)
216 Uid Real, effective, saved set, and file system UIDs
217 Gid Real, effective, saved set, and file system GIDs
218 FDSize number of file descriptor slots currently allocated
219 Groups supplementary group list
220 VmPeak peak virtual memory size
221 VmSize total program size
222 VmLck locked memory size
223 VmHWM peak resident set size ("high water mark")
224 VmRSS size of memory portions
225 VmData size of data, stack, and text segments
226 VmStk size of data, stack, and text segments
227 VmExe size of text segment
228 VmLib size of shared library code
229 VmPTE size of page table entries
230 VmSwap size of swap usage (the number of referred swapents)
231 Threads number of threads
232 SigQ number of signals queued/max. number for queue
233 SigPnd bitmap of pending signals for the thread
234 ShdPnd bitmap of shared pending signals for the process
235 SigBlk bitmap of blocked signals
236 SigIgn bitmap of ignored signals
237 SigCgt bitmap of catched signals
238 CapInh bitmap of inheritable capabilities
239 CapPrm bitmap of permitted capabilities
240 CapEff bitmap of effective capabilities
241 CapBnd bitmap of capabilities bounding set
242 Seccomp seccomp mode, like prctl(PR_GET_SECCOMP, ...)
243 Cpus_allowed mask of CPUs on which this process may run
244 Cpus_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
245 Mems_allowed mask of memory nodes allowed to this process
246 Mems_allowed_list Same as previous, but in "list format"
247 voluntary_ctxt_switches number of voluntary context switches
248 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches number of non voluntary context switches
249 ..............................................................................
251 Table 1-3: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3)
252 ..............................................................................
254 size total program size (pages) (same as VmSize in status)
255 resident size of memory portions (pages) (same as VmRSS in status)
256 shared number of pages that are shared (i.e. backed by a file)
257 trs number of pages that are 'code' (not including libs; broken,
258 includes data segment)
259 lrs number of pages of library (always 0 on 2.6)
260 drs number of pages of data/stack (including libs; broken,
261 includes library text)
262 dt number of dirty pages (always 0 on 2.6)
263 ..............................................................................
266 Table 1-4: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.30-rc7)
267 ..............................................................................
270 tcomm filename of the executable
271 state state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an
272 uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped)
273 ppid process id of the parent process
274 pgrp pgrp of the process
276 tty_nr tty the process uses
277 tty_pgrp pgrp of the tty
279 min_flt number of minor faults
280 cmin_flt number of minor faults with child's
281 maj_flt number of major faults
282 cmaj_flt number of major faults with child's
283 utime user mode jiffies
284 stime kernel mode jiffies
285 cutime user mode jiffies with child's
286 cstime kernel mode jiffies with child's
287 priority priority level
289 num_threads number of threads
290 it_real_value (obsolete, always 0)
291 start_time time the process started after system boot
292 vsize virtual memory size
293 rss resident set memory size
294 rsslim current limit in bytes on the rss
295 start_code address above which program text can run
296 end_code address below which program text can run
297 start_stack address of the start of the main process stack
298 esp current value of ESP
299 eip current value of EIP
300 pending bitmap of pending signals
301 blocked bitmap of blocked signals
302 sigign bitmap of ignored signals
303 sigcatch bitmap of catched signals
304 wchan address where process went to sleep
307 exit_signal signal to send to parent thread on exit
308 task_cpu which CPU the task is scheduled on
309 rt_priority realtime priority
310 policy scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler)
311 blkio_ticks time spent waiting for block IO
312 gtime guest time of the task in jiffies
313 cgtime guest time of the task children in jiffies
314 start_data address above which program data+bss is placed
315 end_data address below which program data+bss is placed
316 start_brk address above which program heap can be expanded with brk()
317 arg_start address above which program command line is placed
318 arg_end address below which program command line is placed
319 env_start address above which program environment is placed
320 env_end address below which program environment is placed
321 exit_code the thread's exit_code in the form reported by the waitpid system call
322 ..............................................................................
324 The /proc/PID/maps file containing the currently mapped memory regions and
325 their access permissions.
329 address perms offset dev inode pathname
331 08048000-08049000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
332 08049000-0804a000 rw-p 00001000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
333 0804a000-0806b000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [heap]
334 a7cb1000-a7cb2000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
335 a7cb2000-a7eb2000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
336 a7eb2000-a7eb3000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
337 a7eb3000-a7ed5000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [stack:1001]
338 a7ed5000-a8008000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
339 a8008000-a800a000 r--p 00133000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
340 a800a000-a800b000 rw-p 00135000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
341 a800b000-a800e000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
342 a800e000-a8022000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
343 a8022000-a8023000 r--p 00013000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
344 a8023000-a8024000 rw-p 00014000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
345 a8024000-a8027000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
346 a8027000-a8043000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
347 a8043000-a8044000 r--p 0001b000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
348 a8044000-a8045000 rw-p 0001c000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
349 aff35000-aff4a000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [stack]
350 ffffe000-fffff000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0 [vdso]
352 where "address" is the address space in the process that it occupies, "perms"
353 is a set of permissions:
359 p = private (copy on write)
361 "offset" is the offset into the mapping, "dev" is the device (major:minor), and
362 "inode" is the inode on that device. 0 indicates that no inode is associated
363 with the memory region, as the case would be with BSS (uninitialized data).
364 The "pathname" shows the name associated file for this mapping. If the mapping
365 is not associated with a file:
367 [heap] = the heap of the program
368 [stack] = the stack of the main process
369 [stack:1001] = the stack of the thread with tid 1001
370 [vdso] = the "virtual dynamic shared object",
371 the kernel system call handler
372 [anon:<name>] = an anonymous mapping that has been
375 or if empty, the mapping is anonymous.
377 The /proc/PID/task/TID/maps is a view of the virtual memory from the viewpoint
378 of the individual tasks of a process. In this file you will see a mapping marked
379 as [stack] if that task sees it as a stack. This is a key difference from the
380 content of /proc/PID/maps, where you will see all mappings that are being used
381 as stack by all of those tasks. Hence, for the example above, the task-level
382 map, i.e. /proc/PID/task/TID/maps for thread 1001 will look like this:
384 08048000-08049000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
385 08049000-0804a000 rw-p 00001000 03:00 8312 /opt/test
386 0804a000-0806b000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [heap]
387 a7cb1000-a7cb2000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
388 a7cb2000-a7eb2000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
389 a7eb2000-a7eb3000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
390 a7eb3000-a7ed5000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [stack]
391 a7ed5000-a8008000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
392 a8008000-a800a000 r--p 00133000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
393 a800a000-a800b000 rw-p 00135000 03:00 4222 /lib/libc.so.6
394 a800b000-a800e000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
395 a800e000-a8022000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
396 a8022000-a8023000 r--p 00013000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
397 a8023000-a8024000 rw-p 00014000 03:00 14462 /lib/libpthread.so.0
398 a8024000-a8027000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
399 a8027000-a8043000 r-xp 00000000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
400 a8043000-a8044000 r--p 0001b000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
401 a8044000-a8045000 rw-p 0001c000 03:00 8317 /lib/ld-linux.so.2
402 aff35000-aff4a000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
403 ffffe000-fffff000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0 [vdso]
405 The /proc/PID/smaps is an extension based on maps, showing the memory
406 consumption for each of the process's mappings. For each of mappings there
407 is a series of lines such as the following:
409 08048000-080bc000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 13130 /bin/bash
423 VmFlags: rd ex mr mw me de
424 Name: name from userspace
426 the first of these lines shows the same information as is displayed for the
427 mapping in /proc/PID/maps. The remaining lines show the size of the mapping
428 (size), the amount of the mapping that is currently resident in RAM (RSS), the
429 process' proportional share of this mapping (PSS), the number of clean and
430 dirty private pages in the mapping. Note that even a page which is part of a
431 MAP_SHARED mapping, but has only a single pte mapped, i.e. is currently used
432 by only one process, is accounted as private and not as shared. "Referenced"
433 indicates the amount of memory currently marked as referenced or accessed.
434 "Anonymous" shows the amount of memory that does not belong to any file. Even
435 a mapping associated with a file may contain anonymous pages: when MAP_PRIVATE
436 and a page is modified, the file page is replaced by a private anonymous copy.
437 "Swap" shows how much would-be-anonymous memory is also used, but out on
440 "VmFlags" field deserves a separate description. This member represents the kernel
441 flags associated with the particular virtual memory area in two letter encoded
442 manner. The codes are the following:
451 gd - stack segment growns down
453 dw - disabled write to the mapped file
454 lo - pages are locked in memory
455 io - memory mapped I/O area
456 sr - sequential read advise provided
457 rr - random read advise provided
458 dc - do not copy area on fork
459 de - do not expand area on remapping
460 ac - area is accountable
461 nr - swap space is not reserved for the area
462 ht - area uses huge tlb pages
463 nl - non-linear mapping
464 ar - architecture specific flag
465 dd - do not include area into core dump
467 hg - huge page advise flag
468 nh - no-huge page advise flag
469 mg - mergable advise flag
471 Note that there is no guarantee that every flag and associated mnemonic will
472 be present in all further kernel releases. Things get changed, the flags may
473 be vanished or the reverse -- new added.
475 The "Name" field will only be present on a mapping that has been named by
476 userspace, and will show the name passed in by userspace.
478 This file is only present if the CONFIG_MMU kernel configuration option is
481 The /proc/PID/clear_refs is used to reset the PG_Referenced and ACCESSED/YOUNG
482 bits on both physical and virtual pages associated with a process.
483 To clear the bits for all the pages associated with the process
484 > echo 1 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
486 To clear the bits for the anonymous pages associated with the process
487 > echo 2 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
489 To clear the bits for the file mapped pages associated with the process
490 > echo 3 > /proc/PID/clear_refs
491 Any other value written to /proc/PID/clear_refs will have no effect.
493 The /proc/pid/pagemap gives the PFN, which can be used to find the pageflags
494 using /proc/kpageflags and number of times a page is mapped using
495 /proc/kpagecount. For detailed explanation, see Documentation/vm/pagemap.txt.
500 Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about
501 the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
502 /proc and are listed in Table 1-5. Not all of these will be present in your
503 system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
504 files are there, and which are missing.
506 Table 1-5: Kernel info in /proc
507 ..............................................................................
509 apm Advanced power management info
510 buddyinfo Kernel memory allocator information (see text) (2.5)
511 bus Directory containing bus specific information
512 cmdline Kernel command line
513 cpuinfo Info about the CPU
514 devices Available devices (block and character)
515 dma Used DMS channels
516 filesystems Supported filesystems
517 driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
518 execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4)
519 fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4)
520 fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4)
521 ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem
522 interrupts Interrupt usage
523 iomem Memory map (2.4)
524 ioports I/O port usage
525 irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?)
526 isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4)
527 kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))
529 ksyms Kernel symbol table
530 loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes
534 modules List of loaded modules
535 mounts Mounted filesystems
536 net Networking info (see text)
537 pagetypeinfo Additional page allocator information (see text) (2.5)
538 partitions Table of partitions known to the system
539 pci Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/,
540 decoupled by lspci (2.4)
542 scsi SCSI info (see text)
543 slabinfo Slab pool info
544 softirqs softirq usage
545 stat Overall statistics
546 swaps Swap space utilization
548 sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4)
549 tty Info of tty drivers
551 version Kernel version
552 video bttv info of video resources (2.4)
553 vmallocinfo Show vmalloced areas
554 ..............................................................................
556 You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what
557 they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:
559 > cat /proc/interrupts
561 0: 8728810 XT-PIC timer
562 1: 895 XT-PIC keyboard
564 3: 531695 XT-PIC aha152x
565 4: 2014133 XT-PIC serial
566 5: 44401 XT-PIC pcnet_cs
569 12: 182918 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
571 14: 1232265 XT-PIC ide0
575 In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
576 output of a SMP machine):
578 > cat /proc/interrupts
581 0: 1243498 1214548 IO-APIC-edge timer
582 1: 8949 8958 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
583 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade
584 5: 11286 10161 IO-APIC-edge soundblaster
585 8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
586 9: 27422 27407 IO-APIC-edge 3c503
587 12: 113645 113873 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
589 14: 22491 24012 IO-APIC-edge ide0
590 15: 2183 2415 IO-APIC-edge ide1
591 17: 30564 30414 IO-APIC-level eth0
592 18: 177 164 IO-APIC-level bttv
597 NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI
598 (Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups.
600 LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU.
602 ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that
603 connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected,
604 the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big
605 problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ.
607 In 2.6.2* /proc/interrupts was expanded again. This time the goal was for
608 /proc/interrupts to display every IRQ vector in use by the system, not
609 just those considered 'most important'. The new vectors are:
611 THR -- interrupt raised when a machine check threshold counter
612 (typically counting ECC corrected errors of memory or cache) exceeds
613 a configurable threshold. Only available on some systems.
615 TRM -- a thermal event interrupt occurs when a temperature threshold
616 has been exceeded for the CPU. This interrupt may also be generated
617 when the temperature drops back to normal.
619 SPU -- a spurious interrupt is some interrupt that was raised then lowered
620 by some IO device before it could be fully processed by the APIC. Hence
621 the APIC sees the interrupt but does not know what device it came from.
622 For this case the APIC will generate the interrupt with a IRQ vector
623 of 0xff. This might also be generated by chipset bugs.
625 RES, CAL, TLB -- rescheduling, call and TLB flush interrupts are
626 sent from one CPU to another per the needs of the OS. Typically,
627 their statistics are used by kernel developers and interested users to
628 determine the occurrence of interrupts of the given type.
630 The above IRQ vectors are displayed only when relevant. For example,
631 the threshold vector does not exist on x86_64 platforms. Others are
632 suppressed when the system is a uniprocessor. As of this writing, only
633 i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays.
635 Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4.
636 It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
637 IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
638 irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and two files; default_smp_affinity and
643 0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
644 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 default_smp_affinity
648 smp_affinity is a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the
649 IRQ, you can set it by doing:
651 > echo 1 > /proc/irq/10/smp_affinity
653 This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo
654 5 which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
656 The contents of each smp_affinity file is the same by default:
658 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
661 There is an alternate interface, smp_affinity_list which allows specifying
662 a cpu range instead of a bitmask:
664 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity_list
667 The default_smp_affinity mask applies to all non-active IRQs, which are the
668 IRQs which have not yet been allocated/activated, and hence which lack a
669 /proc/irq/[0-9]* directory.
671 The node file on an SMP system shows the node to which the device using the IRQ
672 reports itself as being attached. This hardware locality information does not
673 include information about any possible driver locality preference.
675 prof_cpu_mask specifies which CPUs are to be profiled by the system wide
676 profiler. Default value is ffffffff (all cpus if there are only 32 of them).
678 The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin
679 between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
680 more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the
681 best choice for almost everyone. [Note this applies only to those IO-APIC's
682 that support "Round Robin" interrupt distribution.]
684 There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys.
685 The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these
686 directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the
687 directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there
688 only when networking support is present in the running kernel.
690 The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level.
691 Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2.
692 Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers,
693 directory cache, and so on).
695 ..............................................................................
697 > cat /proc/buddyinfo
699 Node 0, zone DMA 0 4 5 4 4 3 ...
700 Node 0, zone Normal 1 0 0 1 101 8 ...
701 Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 0 ...
703 External fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a
704 useful tool for helping diagnose these problems. Buddyinfo will give you a
705 clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous
708 Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are
709 available. In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in
710 ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE
711 available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc...
713 More information relevant to external fragmentation can be found in
716 > cat /proc/pagetypeinfo
720 Free pages count per migrate type at order 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
721 Node 0, zone DMA, type Unmovable 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0
722 Node 0, zone DMA, type Reclaimable 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
723 Node 0, zone DMA, type Movable 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 0 1 0 2
724 Node 0, zone DMA, type Reserve 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
725 Node 0, zone DMA, type Isolate 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
726 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Unmovable 103 54 77 1 1 1 11 8 7 1 9
727 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Reclaimable 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
728 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Movable 169 152 113 91 77 54 39 13 6 1 452
729 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Reserve 1 2 2 2 2 0 1 1 1 1 0
730 Node 0, zone DMA32, type Isolate 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
732 Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve Isolate
733 Node 0, zone DMA 2 0 5 1 0
734 Node 0, zone DMA32 41 6 967 2 0
736 Fragmentation avoidance in the kernel works by grouping pages of different
737 migrate types into the same contiguous regions of memory called page blocks.
738 A page block is typically the size of the default hugepage size e.g. 2MB on
739 X86-64. By keeping pages grouped based on their ability to move, the kernel
740 can reclaim pages within a page block to satisfy a high-order allocation.
742 The pagetypinfo begins with information on the size of a page block. It
743 then gives the same type of information as buddyinfo except broken down
744 by migrate-type and finishes with details on how many page blocks of each
747 If min_free_kbytes has been tuned correctly (recommendations made by hugeadm
748 from libhugetlbfs http://sourceforge.net/projects/libhugetlbfs/), one can
749 make an estimate of the likely number of huge pages that can be allocated
750 at a given point in time. All the "Movable" blocks should be allocatable
751 unless memory has been mlock()'d. Some of the Reclaimable blocks should
752 also be allocatable although a lot of filesystem metadata may have to be
753 reclaimed to achieve this.
755 ..............................................................................
759 Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory. This
760 varies by architecture and compile options. The following is from a
761 16GB PIII, which has highmem enabled. You may not have all of these fields.
765 The "Locked" indicates whether the mapping is locked in memory or not.
768 MemTotal: 16344972 kB
770 MemAvailable: 14836172 kB
776 HighTotal: 15597528 kB
777 HighFree: 13629632 kB
787 SReclaimable: 159856 kB
788 SUnreclaim: 124508 kB
793 CommitLimit: 7669796 kB
794 Committed_AS: 100056 kB
795 VmallocTotal: 112216 kB
797 VmallocChunk: 111088 kB
798 AnonHugePages: 49152 kB
800 MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved
801 bits and the kernel binary code)
802 MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree
803 MemAvailable: An estimate of how much memory is available for starting new
804 applications, without swapping. Calculated from MemFree,
805 SReclaimable, the size of the file LRU lists, and the low
806 watermarks in each zone.
807 The estimate takes into account that the system needs some
808 page cache to function well, and that not all reclaimable
809 slab will be reclaimable, due to items being in use. The
810 impact of those factors will vary from system to system.
811 Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks
812 shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so)
813 Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the
814 pagecache). Doesn't include SwapCached
815 SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but
816 still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it
817 doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already
818 in the swapfile. This saves I/O)
819 Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not
820 reclaimed unless absolutely necessary.
821 Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used. It is more
822 eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes
824 HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory
825 Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or
826 for the pagecache. The kernel must use tricks to access
827 this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem.
829 LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that
830 highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the
831 kernel's use for its own data structures. Among many
832 other things, it is where everything from the Slab is
833 allocated. Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem.
834 SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available
835 SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily
837 Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk
838 Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk
839 AnonPages: Non-file backed pages mapped into userspace page tables
840 AnonHugePages: Non-file backed huge pages mapped into userspace page tables
841 Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries
842 Slab: in-kernel data structures cache
843 SReclaimable: Part of Slab, that might be reclaimed, such as caches
844 SUnreclaim: Part of Slab, that cannot be reclaimed on memory pressure
845 PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page
847 NFS_Unstable: NFS pages sent to the server, but not yet committed to stable
849 Bounce: Memory used for block device "bounce buffers"
850 WritebackTmp: Memory used by FUSE for temporary writeback buffers
851 CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'),
852 this is the total amount of memory currently available to
853 be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to
854 if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in
855 'vm.overcommit_memory').
856 The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula:
857 CommitLimit = ('vm.overcommit_ratio' * Physical RAM) + Swap
858 For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G
859 of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would
860 yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G.
861 For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation
862 in vm/overcommit-accounting.
863 Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system.
864 The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which
865 has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been
866 "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G
867 of memory, but only touches 300M of it will only show up
868 as using 300M of memory even if it has the address space
869 allocated for the entire 1G. This 1G is memory which has
870 been "committed" to by the VM and can be used at any time
871 by the allocating application. With strict overcommit
872 enabled on the system (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'),
873 allocations which would exceed the CommitLimit (detailed
874 above) will not be permitted. This is useful if one needs
875 to guarantee that processes will not fail due to lack of
876 memory once that memory has been successfully allocated.
877 VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area
878 VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used
879 VmallocChunk: largest contiguous block of vmalloc area which is free
881 ..............................................................................
885 Provides information about vmalloced/vmaped areas. One line per area,
886 containing the virtual address range of the area, size in bytes,
887 caller information of the creator, and optional information depending
888 on the kind of area :
890 pages=nr number of pages
891 phys=addr if a physical address was specified
892 ioremap I/O mapping (ioremap() and friends)
893 vmalloc vmalloc() area
896 vpages buffer for pages pointers was vmalloced (huge area)
897 N<node>=nr (Only on NUMA kernels)
898 Number of pages allocated on memory node <node>
900 > cat /proc/vmallocinfo
901 0xffffc20000000000-0xffffc20000201000 2101248 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
902 /0x2c0 pages=512 vmalloc N0=128 N1=128 N2=128 N3=128
903 0xffffc20000201000-0xffffc20000302000 1052672 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
904 /0x2c0 pages=256 vmalloc N0=64 N1=64 N2=64 N3=64
905 0xffffc20000302000-0xffffc20000304000 8192 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
906 phys=7fee8000 ioremap
907 0xffffc20000304000-0xffffc20000307000 12288 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
908 phys=7fee7000 ioremap
909 0xffffc2000031d000-0xffffc2000031f000 8192 init_vdso_vars+0x112/0x210
910 0xffffc2000031f000-0xffffc2000032b000 49152 cramfs_uncompress_init+0x2e ...
911 /0x80 pages=11 vmalloc N0=3 N1=3 N2=2 N3=3
912 0xffffc2000033a000-0xffffc2000033d000 12288 sys_swapon+0x640/0xac0 ...
914 0xffffc20000347000-0xffffc2000034c000 20480 xt_alloc_table_info+0xfe ...
915 /0x130 [x_tables] pages=4 vmalloc N0=4
916 0xffffffffa0000000-0xffffffffa000f000 61440 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
917 pages=14 vmalloc N2=14
918 0xffffffffa000f000-0xffffffffa0014000 20480 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
920 0xffffffffa0014000-0xffffffffa0017000 12288 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
922 0xffffffffa0017000-0xffffffffa0022000 45056 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
923 pages=10 vmalloc N0=10
925 ..............................................................................
929 Provides counts of softirq handlers serviced since boot time, for each cpu.
934 TIMER: 27166 27120 27097 27034
939 SCHED: 27035 26983 26971 26746
941 RCU: 1678 1769 2178 2250
944 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
945 ----------------------------
947 The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which
948 the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the
949 file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory
950 in the controller specific subtree.
952 The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the
955 > cat /proc/ide/drivers
956 ide-cdrom version 4.53
957 ide-disk version 1.08
959 More detailed information can be found in the controller specific
960 subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these
961 directories contains the files shown in table 1-6.
964 Table 1-6: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide?
965 ..............................................................................
967 channel IDE channel (0 or 1)
968 config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)
970 model Type/Chipset of IDE controller
971 ..............................................................................
973 Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the
974 controllers directory. The files listed in table 1-7 are contained in these
978 Table 1-7: IDE device information
979 ..............................................................................
982 capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)
983 driver driver and version
984 geometry physical and logical geometry
985 identify device identify block
987 model device identifier
988 settings device setup
989 smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds
990 smart_values IDE disk management values
991 ..............................................................................
993 The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of
994 the drive parameters:
996 # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings
997 name value min max mode
998 ---- ----- --- --- ----
999 bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw
1000 bios_head 255 0 255 rw
1001 bios_sect 63 0 63 rw
1002 breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw
1004 file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw
1006 keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
1007 max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw
1011 pio_mode write-only 0 255 w
1017 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
1018 --------------------------------
1020 The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1-8 shows the
1021 additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to
1022 support this. Table 1-9 lists the files and their meaning.
1025 Table 1-8: IPv6 info in /proc/net
1026 ..............................................................................
1028 udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6)
1029 tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6)
1030 raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6)
1031 igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)
1032 if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses
1033 ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6
1034 rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics
1035 sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6)
1036 snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6)
1037 ..............................................................................
1040 Table 1-9: Network info in /proc/net
1041 ..............................................................................
1043 arp Kernel ARP table
1044 dev network devices with statistics
1045 dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too
1046 (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound
1048 dev_stat network device status
1049 ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage
1050 ip_fwnames Firewall chain names
1051 ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables
1052 ip_masquerade Major masquerading table
1053 netstat Network statistics
1054 raw raw device statistics
1055 route Kernel routing table
1056 rpc Directory containing rpc info
1057 rt_cache Routing cache
1059 sockstat Socket statistics
1062 unix UNIX domain sockets
1063 wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)
1064 igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined
1065 psched Global packet scheduler parameters.
1066 netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets
1067 ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces
1068 ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache
1069 ..............................................................................
1071 You can use this information to see which network devices are available in
1072 your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices:
1075 Inter-|Receive |[...
1076 face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[...
1077 lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...
1078 ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [...
1079 eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [...
1082 ...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
1083 ...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0
1084 ...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0
1085 ...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0
1087 In addition, each Channel Bond interface has its own directory. For
1088 example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/.
1089 It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the
1090 current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how
1091 many times the slaves link has failed.
1096 If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory
1097 named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list
1098 of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi:
1100 >cat /proc/scsi/scsi
1102 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
1103 Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0
1104 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
1105 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
1106 Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S Rev: 1.04
1107 Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
1110 The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in
1111 the system. These files contain information about the controller, including
1112 the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is
1113 dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec
1114 AHA-2940 SCSI adapter:
1116 > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0
1118 Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4
1120 TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
1121 AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled
1122 AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5
1123 Adapter Configuration:
1124 SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter
1125 Ultra Wide Controller
1126 PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000
1127 Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
1128 Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
1130 SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,
1131 Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
1133 BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6
1134 Adapter Control Word: 0x005b
1135 Extended Translation: Enabled
1136 Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff
1137 Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001
1138 Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
1139 Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
1140 Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
1141 Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:
1142 {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
1143 Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:
1144 {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
1147 Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8
1148 Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)
1149 Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)
1151 Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
1152 Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)
1153 Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)
1156 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
1157 ---------------------------------------
1159 The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of
1160 your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port
1163 These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-10.
1166 Table 1-10: Files in /proc/parport
1167 ..............................................................................
1169 autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired.
1170 devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the
1171 name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear
1173 hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.
1174 irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate
1175 file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ
1177 ..............................................................................
1179 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
1180 -------------------------
1182 Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the
1183 directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in
1184 this directory, as shown in Table 1-11.
1187 Table 1-11: Files in /proc/tty
1188 ..............................................................................
1190 drivers list of drivers and their usage
1191 ldiscs registered line disciplines
1192 driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines
1193 ..............................................................................
1195 To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file
1198 > cat /proc/tty/drivers
1199 pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0-255 pty:slave
1200 pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0-255 pty:master
1201 pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0-255 pty:slave
1202 pty_master /dev/pty 2 0-255 pty:master
1203 serial /dev/cua 5 64-67 serial:callout
1204 serial /dev/ttyS 4 64-67 serial
1205 /dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster
1206 /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system
1207 /dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console
1208 /dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty
1209 unknown /dev/tty 4 1-63 console
1212 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
1213 -------------------------------------------------
1215 Various pieces of information about kernel activity are available in the
1216 /proc/stat file. All of the numbers reported in this file are aggregates
1217 since the system first booted. For a quick look, simply cat the file:
1220 cpu 2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 0 0
1221 cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 0 0
1222 cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 0 0
1223 intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...]
1229 softirq 183433 0 21755 12 39 1137 231 21459 2263
1231 The very first "cpu" line aggregates the numbers in all of the other "cpuN"
1232 lines. These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing
1233 different kinds of work. Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a
1234 second). The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right:
1236 - user: normal processes executing in user mode
1237 - nice: niced processes executing in user mode
1238 - system: processes executing in kernel mode
1239 - idle: twiddling thumbs
1240 - iowait: waiting for I/O to complete
1241 - irq: servicing interrupts
1242 - softirq: servicing softirqs
1243 - steal: involuntary wait
1244 - guest: running a normal guest
1245 - guest_nice: running a niced guest
1247 The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts serviced since boot time, for each
1248 of the possible system interrupts. The first column is the total of all
1249 interrupts serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
1252 The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs.
1254 The "btime" line gives the time at which the system booted, in seconds since
1257 The "processes" line gives the number of processes and threads created, which
1258 includes (but is not limited to) those created by calls to the fork() and
1259 clone() system calls.
1261 The "procs_running" line gives the total number of threads that are
1262 running or ready to run (i.e., the total number of runnable threads).
1264 The "procs_blocked" line gives the number of processes currently blocked,
1265 waiting for I/O to complete.
1267 The "softirq" line gives counts of softirqs serviced since boot time, for each
1268 of the possible system softirqs. The first column is the total of all
1269 softirqs serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
1273 1.9 Ext4 file system parameters
1274 ------------------------------
1276 Information about mounted ext4 file systems can be found in
1277 /proc/fs/ext4. Each mounted filesystem will have a directory in
1278 /proc/fs/ext4 based on its device name (i.e., /proc/fs/ext4/hdc or
1279 /proc/fs/ext4/dm-0). The files in each per-device directory are shown
1280 in Table 1-12, below.
1282 Table 1-12: Files in /proc/fs/ext4/<devname>
1283 ..............................................................................
1285 mb_groups details of multiblock allocator buddy cache of free blocks
1286 ..............................................................................
1290 Shows registered system console lines.
1292 To see which character device lines are currently used for the system console
1293 /dev/console, you may simply look into the file /proc/consoles:
1295 > cat /proc/consoles
1301 device name of the device
1302 operations R = can do read operations
1303 W = can do write operations
1305 flags E = it is enabled
1306 C = it is preferred console
1307 B = it is primary boot console
1308 p = it is used for printk buffer
1309 b = it is not a TTY but a Braille device
1310 a = it is safe to use when cpu is offline
1311 major:minor major and minor number of the device separated by a colon
1313 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1315 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1316 The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only
1317 allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status
1318 by reading files in the hierarchy.
1320 The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes
1321 it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data.
1322 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1324 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1325 CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS
1326 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1328 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1330 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1331 * Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys
1332 * Exploring the files which modify certain parameters
1333 * Review of the /proc/sys file tree
1334 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1337 A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only
1338 a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the
1339 kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system,
1340 but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a
1341 production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that
1342 everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to
1343 reboot the machine once an error has been made.
1345 To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is
1346 given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do
1347 this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your
1350 The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and
1351 general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files
1352 can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both
1353 documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be
1354 very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may
1355 change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt
1356 review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation.
1357 This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2
1358 kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel.
1360 Please see: Documentation/sysctl/ directory for descriptions of these
1363 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1365 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1366 Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the
1367 need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the
1368 /proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo
1369 command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings
1371 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1373 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1374 CHAPTER 3: PER-PROCESS PARAMETERS
1375 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1377 3.1 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj & /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj- Adjust the oom-killer score
1378 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1380 These file can be used to adjust the badness heuristic used to select which
1381 process gets killed in out of memory conditions.
1383 The badness heuristic assigns a value to each candidate task ranging from 0
1384 (never kill) to 1000 (always kill) to determine which process is targeted. The
1385 units are roughly a proportion along that range of allowed memory the process
1386 may allocate from based on an estimation of its current memory and swap use.
1387 For example, if a task is using all allowed memory, its badness score will be
1388 1000. If it is using half of its allowed memory, its score will be 500.
1390 There is an additional factor included in the badness score: the current memory
1391 and swap usage is discounted by 3% for root processes.
1393 The amount of "allowed" memory depends on the context in which the oom killer
1394 was called. If it is due to the memory assigned to the allocating task's cpuset
1395 being exhausted, the allowed memory represents the set of mems assigned to that
1396 cpuset. If it is due to a mempolicy's node(s) being exhausted, the allowed
1397 memory represents the set of mempolicy nodes. If it is due to a memory
1398 limit (or swap limit) being reached, the allowed memory is that configured
1399 limit. Finally, if it is due to the entire system being out of memory, the
1400 allowed memory represents all allocatable resources.
1402 The value of /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj is added to the badness score before it
1403 is used to determine which task to kill. Acceptable values range from -1000
1404 (OOM_SCORE_ADJ_MIN) to +1000 (OOM_SCORE_ADJ_MAX). This allows userspace to
1405 polarize the preference for oom killing either by always preferring a certain
1406 task or completely disabling it. The lowest possible value, -1000, is
1407 equivalent to disabling oom killing entirely for that task since it will always
1408 report a badness score of 0.
1410 Consequently, it is very simple for userspace to define the amount of memory to
1411 consider for each task. Setting a /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj value of +500, for
1412 example, is roughly equivalent to allowing the remainder of tasks sharing the
1413 same system, cpuset, mempolicy, or memory controller resources to use at least
1414 50% more memory. A value of -500, on the other hand, would be roughly
1415 equivalent to discounting 50% of the task's allowed memory from being considered
1416 as scoring against the task.
1418 For backwards compatibility with previous kernels, /proc/<pid>/oom_adj may also
1419 be used to tune the badness score. Its acceptable values range from -16
1420 (OOM_ADJUST_MIN) to +15 (OOM_ADJUST_MAX) and a special value of -17
1421 (OOM_DISABLE) to disable oom killing entirely for that task. Its value is
1422 scaled linearly with /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj.
1424 The value of /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj may be reduced no lower than the last
1425 value set by a CAP_SYS_RESOURCE process. To reduce the value any lower
1426 requires CAP_SYS_RESOURCE.
1428 Caveat: when a parent task is selected, the oom killer will sacrifice any first
1429 generation children with separate address spaces instead, if possible. This
1430 avoids servers and important system daemons from being killed and loses the
1431 minimal amount of work.
1434 3.2 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
1435 -------------------------------------------------------------
1437 This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for
1438 any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj to tune which
1439 process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation.
1442 3.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
1443 -------------------------------------------------------
1445 This file contains IO statistics for each running process
1450 test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat &
1453 test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io
1459 write_bytes: 323932160
1460 cancelled_write_bytes: 0
1469 I/O counter: chars read
1470 The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This
1471 is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread().
1472 It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual
1473 physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from
1480 I/O counter: chars written
1481 The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written
1482 to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar.
1488 I/O counter: read syscalls
1489 Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read()
1496 I/O counter: write syscalls
1497 Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like
1498 write() and pwrite().
1504 I/O counter: bytes read
1505 Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to
1506 be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is
1507 accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and
1508 CIFS at a later time>
1514 I/O counter: bytes written
1515 Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to
1516 the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time.
1519 cancelled_write_bytes
1520 ---------------------
1522 The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and
1523 then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have
1524 been accounted as having caused 1MB of write.
1525 In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen,
1526 by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task
1527 truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted
1528 for (in its write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that
1529 from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing
1536 At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if
1537 process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of
1538 those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result.
1541 More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in
1542 Documentation/accounting.
1544 3.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
1545 ---------------------------------------------------------------
1546 When a process is dumped, all anonymous memory is written to a core file as
1547 long as the size of the core file isn't limited. But sometimes we don't want
1548 to dump some memory segments, for example, huge shared memory. Conversely,
1549 sometimes we want to save file-backed memory segments into a core file, not
1550 only the individual files.
1552 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter allows you to customize which memory segments
1553 will be dumped when the <pid> process is dumped. coredump_filter is a bitmask
1554 of memory types. If a bit of the bitmask is set, memory segments of the
1555 corresponding memory type are dumped, otherwise they are not dumped.
1557 The following 7 memory types are supported:
1558 - (bit 0) anonymous private memory
1559 - (bit 1) anonymous shared memory
1560 - (bit 2) file-backed private memory
1561 - (bit 3) file-backed shared memory
1562 - (bit 4) ELF header pages in file-backed private memory areas (it is
1563 effective only if the bit 2 is cleared)
1564 - (bit 5) hugetlb private memory
1565 - (bit 6) hugetlb shared memory
1567 Note that MMIO pages such as frame buffer are never dumped and vDSO pages
1568 are always dumped regardless of the bitmask status.
1570 Note bit 0-4 doesn't effect any hugetlb memory. hugetlb memory are only
1571 effected by bit 5-6.
1573 Default value of coredump_filter is 0x23; this means all anonymous memory
1574 segments and hugetlb private memory are dumped.
1576 If you don't want to dump all shared memory segments attached to pid 1234,
1577 write 0x21 to the process's proc file.
1579 $ echo 0x21 > /proc/1234/coredump_filter
1581 When a new process is created, the process inherits the bitmask status from its
1582 parent. It is useful to set up coredump_filter before the program runs.
1585 $ echo 0x7 > /proc/self/coredump_filter
1588 3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
1589 --------------------------------------------------------
1591 This file contains lines of the form:
1593 36 35 98:0 /mnt1 /mnt2 rw,noatime master:1 - ext3 /dev/root rw,errors=continue
1594 (1)(2)(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
1596 (1) mount ID: unique identifier of the mount (may be reused after umount)
1597 (2) parent ID: ID of parent (or of self for the top of the mount tree)
1598 (3) major:minor: value of st_dev for files on filesystem
1599 (4) root: root of the mount within the filesystem
1600 (5) mount point: mount point relative to the process's root
1601 (6) mount options: per mount options
1602 (7) optional fields: zero or more fields of the form "tag[:value]"
1603 (8) separator: marks the end of the optional fields
1604 (9) filesystem type: name of filesystem of the form "type[.subtype]"
1605 (10) mount source: filesystem specific information or "none"
1606 (11) super options: per super block options
1608 Parsers should ignore all unrecognised optional fields. Currently the
1609 possible optional fields are:
1611 shared:X mount is shared in peer group X
1612 master:X mount is slave to peer group X
1613 propagate_from:X mount is slave and receives propagation from peer group X (*)
1614 unbindable mount is unbindable
1616 (*) X is the closest dominant peer group under the process's root. If
1617 X is the immediate master of the mount, or if there's no dominant peer
1618 group under the same root, then only the "master:X" field is present
1619 and not the "propagate_from:X" field.
1621 For more information on mount propagation see:
1623 Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt
1626 3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
1627 --------------------------------------------------------
1628 These files provide a method to access a tasks comm value. It also allows for
1629 a task to set its own or one of its thread siblings comm value. The comm value
1630 is limited in size compared to the cmdline value, so writing anything longer
1631 then the kernel's TASK_COMM_LEN (currently 16 chars) will result in a truncated
1635 3.7 /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/children - Information about task children
1636 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
1637 This file provides a fast way to retrieve first level children pids
1638 of a task pointed by <pid>/<tid> pair. The format is a space separated
1641 Note the "first level" here -- if a child has own children they will
1642 not be listed here, one needs to read /proc/<children-pid>/task/<tid>/children
1643 to obtain the descendants.
1645 Since this interface is intended to be fast and cheap it doesn't
1646 guarantee to provide precise results and some children might be
1647 skipped, especially if they've exited right after we printed their
1648 pids, so one need to either stop or freeze processes being inspected
1649 if precise results are needed.
1652 3.7 /proc/<pid>/fdinfo/<fd> - Information about opened file
1653 ---------------------------------------------------------------
1654 This file provides information associated with an opened file. The regular
1655 files have at least two fields -- 'pos' and 'flags'. The 'pos' represents
1656 the current offset of the opened file in decimal form [see lseek(2) for
1657 details] and 'flags' denotes the octal O_xxx mask the file has been
1658 created with [see open(2) for details].
1665 The files such as eventfd, fsnotify, signalfd, epoll among the regular pos/flags
1666 pair provide additional information particular to the objects they represent.
1674 where 'eventfd-count' is hex value of a counter.
1680 sigmask: 0000000000000200
1682 where 'sigmask' is hex value of the signal mask associated
1689 tfd: 5 events: 1d data: ffffffffffffffff
1691 where 'tfd' is a target file descriptor number in decimal form,
1692 'events' is events mask being watched and the 'data' is data
1693 associated with a target [see epoll(7) for more details].
1697 For inotify files the format is the following
1701 inotify wd:3 ino:9e7e sdev:800013 mask:800afce ignored_mask:0 fhandle-bytes:8 fhandle-type:1 f_handle:7e9e0000640d1b6d
1703 where 'wd' is a watch descriptor in decimal form, ie a target file
1704 descriptor number, 'ino' and 'sdev' are inode and device where the
1705 target file resides and the 'mask' is the mask of events, all in hex
1706 form [see inotify(7) for more details].
1708 If the kernel was built with exportfs support, the path to the target
1709 file is encoded as a file handle. The file handle is provided by three
1710 fields 'fhandle-bytes', 'fhandle-type' and 'f_handle', all in hex
1713 If the kernel is built without exportfs support the file handle won't be
1716 If there is no inotify mark attached yet the 'inotify' line will be omitted.
1718 For fanotify files the format is
1722 fanotify flags:10 event-flags:0
1723 fanotify mnt_id:12 mflags:40 mask:38 ignored_mask:40000003
1724 fanotify ino:4f969 sdev:800013 mflags:0 mask:3b ignored_mask:40000000 fhandle-bytes:8 fhandle-type:1 f_handle:69f90400c275b5b4
1726 where fanotify 'flags' and 'event-flags' are values used in fanotify_init
1727 call, 'mnt_id' is the mount point identifier, 'mflags' is the value of
1728 flags associated with mark which are tracked separately from events
1729 mask. 'ino', 'sdev' are target inode and device, 'mask' is the events
1730 mask and 'ignored_mask' is the mask of events which are to be ignored.
1731 All in hex format. Incorporation of 'mflags', 'mask' and 'ignored_mask'
1732 does provide information about flags and mask used in fanotify_mark
1733 call [see fsnotify manpage for details].
1735 While the first three lines are mandatory and always printed, the rest is
1736 optional and may be omitted if no marks created yet.
1739 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1741 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1744 ---------------------
1746 The following mount options are supported:
1748 hidepid= Set /proc/<pid>/ access mode.
1749 gid= Set the group authorized to learn processes information.
1751 hidepid=0 means classic mode - everybody may access all /proc/<pid>/ directories
1754 hidepid=1 means users may not access any /proc/<pid>/ directories but their
1755 own. Sensitive files like cmdline, sched*, status are now protected against
1756 other users. This makes it impossible to learn whether any user runs
1757 specific program (given the program doesn't reveal itself by its behaviour).
1758 As an additional bonus, as /proc/<pid>/cmdline is unaccessible for other users,
1759 poorly written programs passing sensitive information via program arguments are
1760 now protected against local eavesdroppers.
1762 hidepid=2 means hidepid=1 plus all /proc/<pid>/ will be fully invisible to other
1763 users. It doesn't mean that it hides a fact whether a process with a specific
1764 pid value exists (it can be learned by other means, e.g. by "kill -0 $PID"),
1765 but it hides process' uid and gid, which may be learned by stat()'ing
1766 /proc/<pid>/ otherwise. It greatly complicates an intruder's task of gathering
1767 information about running processes, whether some daemon runs with elevated
1768 privileges, whether other user runs some sensitive program, whether other users
1769 run any program at all, etc.
1771 gid= defines a group authorized to learn processes information otherwise
1772 prohibited by hidepid=. If you use some daemon like identd which needs to learn
1773 information about processes information, just add identd to this group.
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