.\" $OpenBSD: mount_procfs.8,v 1.24 2011/12/28 19:06:02 guenther Exp $ .\" $NetBSD: mount_procfs.8,v 1.6 1995/03/18 14:58:10 cgd Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software donated to Berkeley by .\" Jan-Simon Pendry. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)mount_procfs.8 8.2 (Berkeley) 3/27/94 .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: December 28 2011 $ .Dt MOUNT_PROCFS 8 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm mount_procfs .Nd mount the process file system .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm mount_procfs .Op Fl o Ar options .Pa /proc .Pa mount_point .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm command attaches an instance of the process namespace to the global filesystem namespace. The conventional mount point is .Pa /proc . This command is normally executed by .Xr mount 8 at boot time. .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl o Ar options Options are specified with a .Fl o flag followed by a comma separated string of options. See the .Xr mount 8 man page for possible options and their meanings. The following procfs specific option is also available: .Bl -tag -width indent .It linux Add Linux compatibility links and nodes to procfs. .El .El .Pp The root of the process filesystem contains an entry for each active process. These processes are visible as a directory whose name is the process's PID. In addition, the special entry .Pa curproc references the current process. .Pp Each directory contains several files. .Bl -tag -width status .It Pa cmdline Process command line parameters, separated by NULs. .It Pa file A reference to the vnode from which the process text was read. This can be used to gain access to the process's symbol table, or to start another copy of the process. .It Pa mem The complete virtual memory image of the process. Only those address which exist in the process can be accessed. Reads and writes to this file modify the process. Writes to the text segment remain private to the process. .It Pa status The process status. This file is read-only and returns a single line containing multiple space-separated fields as follows: .Pp .Bl -bullet -compact .It Command name. .It Process ID. .It Parent process ID. .It Process group ID. .It Session ID. .It .Ar major,minor of the controlling terminal, or .Dv -1,-1 if there is no controlling terminal. .It List of process flags: .Dv ctty if there is a controlling terminal, .Dv sldr if the process is a session leader, or .Dv noflags if neither of the other two flags are set. .It Process start time in seconds and microseconds, comma separated. .It User time in seconds and microseconds, comma separated. .It System time in seconds and microseconds, comma separated. .It Wait channel message. .It Process credentials consisting of the effective user ID and the list of groups (whose first member is the effective group ID), all comma separated. .El .El .Pp Statistics reported by .Xr df 1 on a procfs filesystem will indicate virtual memory used/available instead of .Sq disk space , and the number of process slots used/allocated instead of .Sq inodes . The block size of the filesystem is the system page size. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width /proc/curproc -compact .It Pa /proc/# .It Pa /proc/curproc .It Pa /proc/curproc/cmdline .It Pa /proc/curproc/file .It Pa /proc/curproc/mem .It Pa /proc/curproc/status .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr mount 2 , .Xr fstab 5 , .Xr mount 8 , .Xr umount 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm utility first appeared in .Bx 4.4 . .Sh CAVEATS This filesystem may not be NFS-exported since most of the functionality of .Dv procfs requires that state be maintained.