proc

NAME

proc - process virtual file system

SYNOPSIS

/proc/*

DESCRIPTION

Directory structure

The /proc directory contains a subdirectory for each running process; the name of the subdirectory is the process identifier (ID) number. The same information is available under /dev/proc. Each process directory contains files that describe the state of the process. Access to the files is restricted to the owner or to a user with appropriate privileges. These files are as follows:

as

Address space. This is a read/write file.

cmdline

The command line that invoked the process. Each argument is terminated by a nul.

ctl

Control file. This control file is write-only. The following control messages are defined in <sys/procfs>:

PCSTOP

Stop process cold.

PCRUN

Resume a stopped process.

PCWSTOP

Block until traced process stops on event of interest.

PCSTRACE

Set signal trace bits.

PCSFAULT

Set fault trace bits.

PCSENTRY

Set sysentry trace bits.

PCSEXIT

Set sysexit trace bits.

PCCFAULT

Clear current fault (if stopped on fault).

PCSREG

Set general registers.

PCSFPREG

Set floating point registers.

environ

The environment of the process.

map

Read-only map of the virtual memory address space.

psinfo

Contains miscellaneous information about the process and the representative light-weight process (lwp) needed by the ps(1) command. The psinfo process file is accessible after a process becomes a zombie. The file contains a psinfo structure (as defined in <sys/procfs.h>) that contains an embedded lwpsinfo structure for the representative lwp.

stat

Human readable read-only status information. For example:

argv0	 /usr/sbin/cron
pid  32
ppid 1
pgid 32
ruser	 1049595
user	1049595
rgroup	1049581
group	 1049581
utime	 0
stime	 2974
cutime	53577
cstime	53727
tty  -
state	 3
flags	 2
etime	 1187284133
vsize	 13578240
wsize	 217088
sid  32
inpsx	 1

status

Binary status information. It corresponds to the System V r4.2 status file, and consists of a pstatus_t structure as defined in <sys/procfs.h>. It is used by gdb(1).

NOTE

The format of the contents of the proc directory as found in the current release as well as any structures defined in procfs.h and ucontext.h are not guaranteed to be valid in future releases.

SEE ALSO

ps(1)

truss(1)