46
votes
3answers
22k views

How do I read from /proc/$pid/mem under Linux?

The Linux proc(5) man page tells me that /proc/$pid/mem “can be used to access the pages of a process's memory”. But a straightforward attempt to use it only gives me $ cat /proc/$$/mem ...
16
votes
3answers
2k views

How can I set the processor affinity of a process on Linux?

The question is all in the title: How can I set the processor affinity of a process on Linux?
16
votes
4answers
2k views

What happens to the output of a process that has been disowned and lost its terminal?

If I close the virtual terminal, where some process was started, does the output just go straight to /dev/null, or can it pollute memory somehow? Can I anyhow grab the output to continue reading it at ...
1
vote
2answers
274 views

Is there a log of past threads that are now closed?

Sometimes, I have a rogue Java process which takes up 100% of my CPU and makes it jump about 30C in temperature (usually resulting in a crash if not killed). Problem is, I can never really identify ...
7
votes
3answers
3k views

How to read environment variables of a process

Linux's /proc/<pid>/environ does not update (as I understand it, the file contain the initial environment of the process). How can I read a process's current environment?
3
votes
1answer
1k views

I don't want other users see my processes in ps aux. I have root. It's Debian. How to use grsec?

I installed 'linux-patch-grsecurity2' and it has some sort of interface. ~$ sudo gradm2 gradm 2.1.14 grsecurity administration program Usage: gradm [option] ... Examples: gradm -P ...
8
votes
2answers
4k views

Linux: Writing a watchdog to monitor multiple processes

A few years ago, a coworker came up with an elegant solution for a watchdog program. The program ran on Windows and used Windows Event objects to monitor the process handles (PID’s) of several ...
2
votes
3answers
505 views

Why does Firefox refuse to die despite killing it with pkill -9?

I am issuing the following command to kill Firefox on my Red Hat Linux box: [subhrcho@slc04lyo ~]$ pkill -9 -f firefox [subhrcho@slc04lyo ~]$ However, when I try to invoke Firefox through ...
10
votes
1answer
6k views

Getting information about a process' memory usage from /proc/pid/smaps

For a given process in /proc/<pid>/smaps, for a given mapping entry what are: Shared_Clean Shared_Dirty Private_Clean Private_Dirty Is Shared_Clean + Shared_Dirty the amount of memory that ...
9
votes
1answer
3k views

init process: ancestor of all processes?

I have always learned that the init process is the ancestor of all processes. Why does process 2 have a PPID of 0? $ ps -ef | head -n 3 UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD root ...
6
votes
2answers
707 views

Is it possible to transfer a running process to your terminal? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How can I pause up a running process over ssh, disown it, associate it to a new screen shell and unpause it? It is fairly easy to disown a process, or make it run ...
1
vote
1answer
295 views

What process created this window with no PID associated? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: What process created this X11 window? I need to kill a process that spawned a window which seems to have no PID associated with it. At least that is what xdotool says: ...
5
votes
4answers
463 views

Block network access of a process?

Is it possible to block the (outgoing) network access of a single process?
1
vote
2answers
356 views

Discrepancy between reported used memory and sum of application memory usage

I'm running a desktop system that quite regularly suffers from lack of memory, this prompted me to investigate what causes the issue in the first place. Problem is, there's no single process that ...
4
votes
4answers
308 views

why new pid is smaller than the old ones?

Is there any chance the new process's pid is smaller than the existed ones ? I have a daemon process which will restart when be killed, I recorded the pids, and found that the pid first came smaller, ...