Proc and Processes

The /proc directory — which provides a text-based way of
interfacing with system settings and processes — looks complicated at first
glance, but it can be incredibly helpful when troubleshooting. Try out these
tips for looking at processes:

ls /proc will show you a long list of directories. These are your
processes, one directory per process ID. Have a look at your process list
(using ps -A), and pick a process. The one I’ll look at is

1787 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird

so directory /proc/1787.

Look at the contents of that directory. The file cmdline tells
you what command was used to launch this process. This can be useful if the
problem you have is launch-related. You’ll be warned that this might be
binary, but it’s mostly text and easy to read. environ, similarly,
gives you the command environment, which is also useful for troubleshooting
(try starting the process on another machine and comparing the files); and the

fd directory allows you to check what the process is accessing.

maps shows the memory maps to executables and library files.
For each executable or library, the memory address is given,
together with the permissions (r/w/x, s(hared), and p(rivate – copy on
write)), the offset into the file, and the device and device inode.
For my Thunderbird process, it starts like this:

08048000-080e9000 r-xp 00000000 03:01 2354694    /bin/bash
080e9000-080ef000 rw-p 000a0000 03:01 2354694    /bin/bash
080ef000-08183000 rw-p 080ef000 00:00 0          [heap]

Lastly, for this brief overview: stat and status (the more
human-readable file) both give status information. This is
the full list that ps pulls selected information from.

For further information, the proc manpage is incredibly
comprehensive and well worth a look.

This article was first published on ServerWatch.com.

RELATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS

• Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  December 04, 2020

• Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 18, 2020

• Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  November 10, 2020

• Top 10 AIOps Companies

  FEATURE |  By Samuel Greengard,
  November 05, 2020

• What is Text Analysis?

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 02, 2020

• How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 29, 2020

• Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 23, 2020

• The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 16, 2020

• Top 10 Chatbot Platforms

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  October 07, 2020

• Finding a Career Path in AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  October 05, 2020

• CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  September 25, 2020

• Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 25, 2020

• Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  September 22, 2020

• NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 18, 2020

• Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 14, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 13, 2020

• IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 11, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality

  FEATURE |  By James Maguire,
  September 09, 2020

• Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 05, 2020

• The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  August 14, 2020