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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Version 1.3 Kernel version 2.2.12
10 Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4
11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17 0.1 Introduction/Credits
20 1 Collecting System Information
21 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories
23 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
24 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
26 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
27 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
28 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
30 2 Modifying System Parameters
31 2.1 /proc/sys/fs - File system data
32 2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats
33 2.3 /proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters
34 2.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem
35 2.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters
36 2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls
37 2.7 /proc/sys/net - Networking stuff
38 2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings
41 2.11 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem
42 2.12 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
43 2.13 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
44 2.14 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
45 2.15 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
46 2.16 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
47 2.17 /proc/sys/fs/epoll - Configuration options for the epoll interface
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://skaro.nightcrawler.com/~bb/Docs/Proc as HTML version.
83 If the above direction does not works for you, ypu 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
143 stack Report full stack trace, enable via CONFIG_STACKTRACE
144 smaps Extension based on maps, the rss size for each mapped file
145 ..............................................................................
147 For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is
148 read the file /proc/PID/status:
150 >cat /proc/self/status
166 SigPnd: 0000000000000000
167 SigBlk: 0000000000000000
168 SigIgn: 0000000000000000
169 SigCgt: 0000000000000000
170 CapInh: 00000000fffffeff
171 CapPrm: 0000000000000000
172 CapEff: 0000000000000000
175 This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
176 the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its
177 information. The statm file contains more detailed information about the
178 process memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-2. The stat
179 file contains details information about the process itself. Its fields are
180 explained in Table 1-3.
183 Table 1-2: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3)
184 ..............................................................................
186 size total program size (pages) (same as VmSize in status)
187 resident size of memory portions (pages) (same as VmRSS in status)
188 shared number of pages that are shared (i.e. backed by a file)
189 trs number of pages that are 'code' (not including libs; broken,
190 includes data segment)
191 lrs number of pages of library (always 0 on 2.6)
192 drs number of pages of data/stack (including libs; broken,
193 includes library text)
194 dt number of dirty pages (always 0 on 2.6)
195 ..............................................................................
198 Table 1-3: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.22-rc3)
199 ..............................................................................
202 tcomm filename of the executable
203 state state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an
204 uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped)
205 ppid process id of the parent process
206 pgrp pgrp of the process
208 tty_nr tty the process uses
209 tty_pgrp pgrp of the tty
211 min_flt number of minor faults
212 cmin_flt number of minor faults with child's
213 maj_flt number of major faults
214 cmaj_flt number of major faults with child's
215 utime user mode jiffies
216 stime kernel mode jiffies
217 cutime user mode jiffies with child's
218 cstime kernel mode jiffies with child's
219 priority priority level
221 num_threads number of threads
222 it_real_value (obsolete, always 0)
223 start_time time the process started after system boot
224 vsize virtual memory size
225 rss resident set memory size
226 rsslim current limit in bytes on the rss
227 start_code address above which program text can run
228 end_code address below which program text can run
229 start_stack address of the start of the stack
230 esp current value of ESP
231 eip current value of EIP
232 pending bitmap of pending signals (obsolete)
233 blocked bitmap of blocked signals (obsolete)
234 sigign bitmap of ignored signals (obsolete)
235 sigcatch bitmap of catched signals (obsolete)
236 wchan address where process went to sleep
239 exit_signal signal to send to parent thread on exit
240 task_cpu which CPU the task is scheduled on
241 rt_priority realtime priority
242 policy scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler)
243 blkio_ticks time spent waiting for block IO
244 ..............................................................................
250 Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about
251 the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
252 /proc and are listed in Table 1-4. Not all of these will be present in your
253 system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
254 files are there, and which are missing.
256 Table 1-4: Kernel info in /proc
257 ..............................................................................
259 apm Advanced power management info
260 buddyinfo Kernel memory allocator information (see text) (2.5)
261 bus Directory containing bus specific information
262 cmdline Kernel command line
263 cpuinfo Info about the CPU
264 devices Available devices (block and character)
265 dma Used DMS channels
266 filesystems Supported filesystems
267 driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
268 execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4)
269 fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4)
270 fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4)
271 ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem
272 interrupts Interrupt usage
273 iomem Memory map (2.4)
274 ioports I/O port usage
275 irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?)
276 isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4)
277 kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))
279 ksyms Kernel symbol table
280 loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes
284 modules List of loaded modules
285 mounts Mounted filesystems
286 net Networking info (see text)
287 partitions Table of partitions known to the system
288 pci Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/,
289 decoupled by lspci (2.4)
291 scsi SCSI info (see text)
292 slabinfo Slab pool info
293 stat Overall statistics
294 swaps Swap space utilization
296 sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4)
297 tty Info of tty drivers
299 version Kernel version
300 video bttv info of video resources (2.4)
301 vmallocinfo Show vmalloced areas
302 ..............................................................................
304 You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what
305 they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:
307 > cat /proc/interrupts
309 0: 8728810 XT-PIC timer
310 1: 895 XT-PIC keyboard
312 3: 531695 XT-PIC aha152x
313 4: 2014133 XT-PIC serial
314 5: 44401 XT-PIC pcnet_cs
317 12: 182918 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
319 14: 1232265 XT-PIC ide0
323 In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
324 output of a SMP machine):
326 > cat /proc/interrupts
329 0: 1243498 1214548 IO-APIC-edge timer
330 1: 8949 8958 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
331 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade
332 5: 11286 10161 IO-APIC-edge soundblaster
333 8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
334 9: 27422 27407 IO-APIC-edge 3c503
335 12: 113645 113873 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
337 14: 22491 24012 IO-APIC-edge ide0
338 15: 2183 2415 IO-APIC-edge ide1
339 17: 30564 30414 IO-APIC-level eth0
340 18: 177 164 IO-APIC-level bttv
345 NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI
346 (Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups.
348 LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU.
350 ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that
351 connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected,
352 the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big
353 problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ.
355 In 2.6.2* /proc/interrupts was expanded again. This time the goal was for
356 /proc/interrupts to display every IRQ vector in use by the system, not
357 just those considered 'most important'. The new vectors are:
359 THR -- interrupt raised when a machine check threshold counter
360 (typically counting ECC corrected errors of memory or cache) exceeds
361 a configurable threshold. Only available on some systems.
363 TRM -- a thermal event interrupt occurs when a temperature threshold
364 has been exceeded for the CPU. This interrupt may also be generated
365 when the temperature drops back to normal.
367 SPU -- a spurious interrupt is some interrupt that was raised then lowered
368 by some IO device before it could be fully processed by the APIC. Hence
369 the APIC sees the interrupt but does not know what device it came from.
370 For this case the APIC will generate the interrupt with a IRQ vector
371 of 0xff. This might also be generated by chipset bugs.
373 RES, CAL, TLB -- rescheduling, call and TLB flush interrupts are
374 sent from one CPU to another per the needs of the OS. Typically,
375 their statistics are used by kernel developers and interested users to
376 determine the occurance of interrupt of the given type.
378 The above IRQ vectors are displayed only when relevent. For example,
379 the threshold vector does not exist on x86_64 platforms. Others are
380 suppressed when the system is a uniprocessor. As of this writing, only
381 i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays.
383 Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4.
384 It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
385 IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
386 irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and two files; default_smp_affinity and
391 0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
392 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 default_smp_affinity
396 smp_affinity is a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the
397 IRQ, you can set it by doing:
399 > echo 1 > /proc/irq/10/smp_affinity
401 This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo
402 5 which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
404 The contents of each smp_affinity file is the same by default:
406 > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
409 The default_smp_affinity mask applies to all non-active IRQs, which are the
410 IRQs which have not yet been allocated/activated, and hence which lack a
411 /proc/irq/[0-9]* directory.
413 prof_cpu_mask specifies which CPUs are to be profiled by the system wide
414 profiler. Default value is ffffffff (all cpus).
416 The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin
417 between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
418 more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the
419 best choice for almost everyone.
421 There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys.
422 The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these
423 directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the
424 directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there
425 only when networking support is present in the running kernel.
427 The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level.
428 Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2.
429 Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers,
430 directory cache, and so on).
432 ..............................................................................
434 > cat /proc/buddyinfo
436 Node 0, zone DMA 0 4 5 4 4 3 ...
437 Node 0, zone Normal 1 0 0 1 101 8 ...
438 Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 0 ...
440 Memory fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a
441 useful tool for helping diagnose these problems. Buddyinfo will give you a
442 clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous
445 Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are
446 available. In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in
447 ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE
448 available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc...
450 ..............................................................................
454 Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory. This
455 varies by architecture and compile options. The following is from a
456 16GB PIII, which has highmem enabled. You may not have all of these fields.
461 MemTotal: 16344972 kB
468 HighTotal: 15597528 kB
469 HighFree: 13629632 kB
479 SReclaimable: 159856 kB
480 SUnreclaim: 124508 kB
485 CommitLimit: 7669796 kB
486 Committed_AS: 100056 kB
487 VmallocTotal: 112216 kB
489 VmallocChunk: 111088 kB
491 MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved
492 bits and the kernel binary code)
493 MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree
494 Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks
495 shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so)
496 Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the
497 pagecache). Doesn't include SwapCached
498 SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but
499 still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it
500 doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already
501 in the swapfile. This saves I/O)
502 Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not
503 reclaimed unless absolutely necessary.
504 Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used. It is more
505 eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes
507 HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory
508 Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or
509 for the pagecache. The kernel must use tricks to access
510 this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem.
512 LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that
513 highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the
514 kernel's use for its own data structures. Among many
515 other things, it is where everything from the Slab is
516 allocated. Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem.
517 SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available
518 SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily
520 Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk
521 Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk
522 AnonPages: Non-file backed pages mapped into userspace page tables
523 Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries
524 Slab: in-kernel data structures cache
525 SReclaimable: Part of Slab, that might be reclaimed, such as caches
526 SUnreclaim: Part of Slab, that cannot be reclaimed on memory pressure
527 PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page
529 NFS_Unstable: NFS pages sent to the server, but not yet committed to stable
531 Bounce: Memory used for block device "bounce buffers"
532 WritebackTmp: Memory used by FUSE for temporary writeback buffers
533 CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'),
534 this is the total amount of memory currently available to
535 be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to
536 if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in
537 'vm.overcommit_memory').
538 The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula:
539 CommitLimit = ('vm.overcommit_ratio' * Physical RAM) + Swap
540 For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G
541 of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would
542 yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G.
543 For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation
544 in vm/overcommit-accounting.
545 Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system.
546 The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which
547 has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been
548 "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G
549 of memory, but only touches 300M of it will only show up
550 as using 300M of memory even if it has the address space
551 allocated for the entire 1G. This 1G is memory which has
552 been "committed" to by the VM and can be used at any time
553 by the allocating application. With strict overcommit
554 enabled on the system (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'),
555 allocations which would exceed the CommitLimit (detailed
556 above) will not be permitted. This is useful if one needs
557 to guarantee that processes will not fail due to lack of
558 memory once that memory has been successfully allocated.
559 VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area
560 VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used
561 VmallocChunk: largest contigious block of vmalloc area which is free
563 ..............................................................................
567 Provides information about vmalloced/vmaped areas. One line per area,
568 containing the virtual address range of the area, size in bytes,
569 caller information of the creator, and optional information depending
570 on the kind of area :
572 pages=nr number of pages
573 phys=addr if a physical address was specified
574 ioremap I/O mapping (ioremap() and friends)
575 vmalloc vmalloc() area
578 vpages buffer for pages pointers was vmalloced (huge area)
579 N<node>=nr (Only on NUMA kernels)
580 Number of pages allocated on memory node <node>
582 > cat /proc/vmallocinfo
583 0xffffc20000000000-0xffffc20000201000 2101248 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
584 /0x2c0 pages=512 vmalloc N0=128 N1=128 N2=128 N3=128
585 0xffffc20000201000-0xffffc20000302000 1052672 alloc_large_system_hash+0x204 ...
586 /0x2c0 pages=256 vmalloc N0=64 N1=64 N2=64 N3=64
587 0xffffc20000302000-0xffffc20000304000 8192 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
588 phys=7fee8000 ioremap
589 0xffffc20000304000-0xffffc20000307000 12288 acpi_tb_verify_table+0x21/0x4f...
590 phys=7fee7000 ioremap
591 0xffffc2000031d000-0xffffc2000031f000 8192 init_vdso_vars+0x112/0x210
592 0xffffc2000031f000-0xffffc2000032b000 49152 cramfs_uncompress_init+0x2e ...
593 /0x80 pages=11 vmalloc N0=3 N1=3 N2=2 N3=3
594 0xffffc2000033a000-0xffffc2000033d000 12288 sys_swapon+0x640/0xac0 ...
596 0xffffc20000347000-0xffffc2000034c000 20480 xt_alloc_table_info+0xfe ...
597 /0x130 [x_tables] pages=4 vmalloc N0=4
598 0xffffffffa0000000-0xffffffffa000f000 61440 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
599 pages=14 vmalloc N2=14
600 0xffffffffa000f000-0xffffffffa0014000 20480 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
602 0xffffffffa0014000-0xffffffffa0017000 12288 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
604 0xffffffffa0017000-0xffffffffa0022000 45056 sys_init_module+0xc27/0x1d00 ...
605 pages=10 vmalloc N0=10
607 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
608 ----------------------------
610 The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which
611 the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the
612 file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory
613 in the controller specific subtree.
615 The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the
618 > cat /proc/ide/drivers
619 ide-cdrom version 4.53
620 ide-disk version 1.08
622 More detailed information can be found in the controller specific
623 subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these
624 directories contains the files shown in table 1-5.
627 Table 1-5: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide?
628 ..............................................................................
630 channel IDE channel (0 or 1)
631 config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)
633 model Type/Chipset of IDE controller
634 ..............................................................................
636 Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the
637 controllers directory. The files listed in table 1-6 are contained in these
641 Table 1-6: IDE device information
642 ..............................................................................
645 capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)
646 driver driver and version
647 geometry physical and logical geometry
648 identify device identify block
650 model device identifier
651 settings device setup
652 smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds
653 smart_values IDE disk management values
654 ..............................................................................
656 The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of
657 the drive parameters:
659 # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings
660 name value min max mode
661 ---- ----- --- --- ----
662 bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw
663 bios_head 255 0 255 rw
665 breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw
667 file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw
669 keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
670 max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw
674 pio_mode write-only 0 255 w
680 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
681 --------------------------------
683 The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1-6 shows the
684 additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to
685 support this. Table 1-7 lists the files and their meaning.
688 Table 1-6: IPv6 info in /proc/net
689 ..............................................................................
691 udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6)
692 tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6)
693 raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6)
694 igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)
695 if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses
696 ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6
697 rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics
698 sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6)
699 snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6)
700 ..............................................................................
703 Table 1-7: Network info in /proc/net
704 ..............................................................................
707 dev network devices with statistics
708 dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too
709 (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound
711 dev_stat network device status
712 ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage
713 ip_fwnames Firewall chain names
714 ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables
715 ip_masquerade Major masquerading table
716 netstat Network statistics
717 raw raw device statistics
718 route Kernel routing table
719 rpc Directory containing rpc info
720 rt_cache Routing cache
722 sockstat Socket statistics
724 tr_rif Token ring RIF routing table
726 unix UNIX domain sockets
727 wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)
728 igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined
729 psched Global packet scheduler parameters.
730 netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets
731 ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces
732 ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache
733 ..............................................................................
735 You can use this information to see which network devices are available in
736 your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices:
740 face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[...
741 lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...
742 ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [...
743 eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [...
746 ...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
747 ...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0
748 ...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0
749 ...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0
751 In addition, each Channel Bond interface has it's own directory. For
752 example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/.
753 It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the
754 current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how
755 many times the slaves link has failed.
760 If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory
761 named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list
762 of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi:
766 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
767 Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0
768 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
769 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
770 Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S Rev: 1.04
771 Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
774 The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in
775 the system. These files contain information about the controller, including
776 the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is
777 dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec
778 AHA-2940 SCSI adapter:
780 > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0
782 Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4
784 TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
785 AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled
786 AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5
787 Adapter Configuration:
788 SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter
789 Ultra Wide Controller
790 PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000
791 Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
792 Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
794 SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,
795 Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
797 BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6
798 Adapter Control Word: 0x005b
799 Extended Translation: Enabled
800 Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff
801 Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001
802 Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
803 Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
804 Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
805 Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:
806 {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
807 Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:
808 {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
811 Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8
812 Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)
813 Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)
815 Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
816 Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)
817 Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)
820 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
821 ---------------------------------------
823 The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of
824 your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port
827 These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-8.
830 Table 1-8: Files in /proc/parport
831 ..............................................................................
833 autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired.
834 devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the
835 name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear
837 hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.
838 irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate
839 file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ
841 ..............................................................................
843 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
844 -------------------------
846 Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the
847 directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in
848 this directory, as shown in Table 1-9.
851 Table 1-9: Files in /proc/tty
852 ..............................................................................
854 drivers list of drivers and their usage
855 ldiscs registered line disciplines
856 driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines
857 ..............................................................................
859 To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file
862 > cat /proc/tty/drivers
863 pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0-255 pty:slave
864 pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0-255 pty:master
865 pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0-255 pty:slave
866 pty_master /dev/pty 2 0-255 pty:master
867 serial /dev/cua 5 64-67 serial:callout
868 serial /dev/ttyS 4 64-67 serial
869 /dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster
870 /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system
871 /dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console
872 /dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty
873 unknown /dev/tty 4 1-63 console
876 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat
877 -------------------------------------------------
879 Various pieces of information about kernel activity are available in the
880 /proc/stat file. All of the numbers reported in this file are aggregates
881 since the system first booted. For a quick look, simply cat the file:
884 cpu 2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 0
885 cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 0
886 cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 0
887 intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...]
894 The very first "cpu" line aggregates the numbers in all of the other "cpuN"
895 lines. These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing
896 different kinds of work. Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a
897 second). The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right:
899 - user: normal processes executing in user mode
900 - nice: niced processes executing in user mode
901 - system: processes executing in kernel mode
902 - idle: twiddling thumbs
903 - iowait: waiting for I/O to complete
904 - irq: servicing interrupts
905 - softirq: servicing softirqs
906 - steal: involuntary wait
908 The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts serviced since boot time, for each
909 of the possible system interrupts. The first column is the total of all
910 interrupts serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular
913 The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs.
915 The "btime" line gives the time at which the system booted, in seconds since
918 The "processes" line gives the number of processes and threads created, which
919 includes (but is not limited to) those created by calls to the fork() and
920 clone() system calls.
922 The "procs_running" line gives the number of processes currently running on
925 The "procs_blocked" line gives the number of processes currently blocked,
926 waiting for I/O to complete.
929 1.9 Ext4 file system parameters
930 ------------------------------
932 Information about mounted ext4 file systems can be found in
933 /proc/fs/ext4. Each mounted filesystem will have a directory in
934 /proc/fs/ext4 based on its device name (i.e., /proc/fs/ext4/hdc or
935 /proc/fs/ext4/dm-0). The files in each per-device directory are shown
936 in Table 1-10, below.
938 Table 1-10: Files in /proc/fs/ext4/<devname>
939 ..............................................................................
941 mb_groups details of multiblock allocator buddy cache of free blocks
942 mb_history multiblock allocation history
943 ..............................................................................
946 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
948 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
949 The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only
950 allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status
951 by reading files in the hierarchy.
953 The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes
954 it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data.
955 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
957 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
958 CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS
959 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
961 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
963 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
964 * Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys
965 * Exploring the files which modify certain parameters
966 * Review of the /proc/sys file tree
967 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
970 A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only
971 a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the
972 kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system,
973 but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a
974 production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that
975 everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to
976 reboot the machine once an error has been made.
978 To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is
979 given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do
980 this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your
983 The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and
984 general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files
985 can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both
986 documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be
987 very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may
988 change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt
989 review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation.
990 This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2
991 kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel.
993 2.1 /proc/sys/fs - File system data
994 -----------------------------------
996 This subdirectory contains specific file system, file handle, inode, dentry
997 and quota information.
999 Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/fs:
1004 Status of the directory cache. Since directory entries are dynamically
1005 allocated and deallocated, this file indicates the current status. It holds
1006 six values, in which the last two are not used and are always zero. The others
1007 are listed in table 2-1.
1010 Table 2-1: Status files of the directory cache
1011 ..............................................................................
1013 nr_dentry Almost always zero
1014 nr_unused Number of unused cache entries
1016 in seconds after the entry may be reclaimed, when memory is short
1017 want_pages internally
1018 ..............................................................................
1020 dquot-nr and dquot-max
1021 ----------------------
1023 The file dquot-max shows the maximum number of cached disk quota entries.
1025 The file dquot-nr shows the number of allocated disk quota entries and the
1026 number of free disk quota entries.
1028 If the number of available cached disk quotas is very low and you have a large
1029 number of simultaneous system users, you might want to raise the limit.
1031 file-nr and file-max
1032 --------------------
1034 The kernel allocates file handles dynamically, but doesn't free them again at
1037 The value in file-max denotes the maximum number of file handles that the
1038 Linux kernel will allocate. When you get a lot of error messages about running
1039 out of file handles, you might want to raise this limit. The default value is
1040 10% of RAM in kilobytes. To change it, just write the new number into the
1043 # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
1045 # echo 8192 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
1046 # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
1050 This method of revision is useful for all customizable parameters of the
1051 kernel - simply echo the new value to the corresponding file.
1053 Historically, the three values in file-nr denoted the number of allocated file
1054 handles, the number of allocated but unused file handles, and the maximum
1055 number of file handles. Linux 2.6 always reports 0 as the number of free file
1056 handles -- this is not an error, it just means that the number of allocated
1057 file handles exactly matches the number of used file handles.
1059 Attempts to allocate more file descriptors than file-max are reported with
1060 printk, look for "VFS: file-max limit <number> reached".
1062 inode-state and inode-nr
1063 ------------------------
1065 The file inode-nr contains the first two items from inode-state, so we'll skip
1068 inode-state contains two actual numbers and five dummy values. The numbers
1069 are nr_inodes and nr_free_inodes (in order of appearance).
1074 Denotes the number of inodes the system has allocated. This number will
1075 grow and shrink dynamically.
1080 Denotes the maximum number of file-handles a process can
1081 allocate. Default value is 1024*1024 (1048576) which should be
1082 enough for most machines. Actual limit depends on RLIMIT_NOFILE
1088 Represents the number of free inodes. Ie. The number of inuse inodes is
1089 (nr_inodes - nr_free_inodes).
1091 aio-nr and aio-max-nr
1092 ---------------------
1094 aio-nr is the running total of the number of events specified on the
1095 io_setup system call for all currently active aio contexts. If aio-nr
1096 reaches aio-max-nr then io_setup will fail with EAGAIN. Note that
1097 raising aio-max-nr does not result in the pre-allocation or re-sizing
1098 of any kernel data structures.
1100 2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats
1101 -----------------------------------------------------------
1103 Besides these files, there is the subdirectory /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. This
1104 handles the kernel support for miscellaneous binary formats.
1106 Binfmt_misc provides the ability to register additional binary formats to the
1107 Kernel without compiling an additional module/kernel. Therefore, binfmt_misc
1108 needs to know magic numbers at the beginning or the filename extension of the
1111 It works by maintaining a linked list of structs that contain a description of
1112 a binary format, including a magic with size (or the filename extension),
1113 offset and mask, and the interpreter name. On request it invokes the given
1114 interpreter with the original program as argument, as binfmt_java and
1115 binfmt_em86 and binfmt_mz do. Since binfmt_misc does not define any default
1116 binary-formats, you have to register an additional binary-format.
1118 There are two general files in binfmt_misc and one file per registered format.
1119 The two general files are register and status.
1121 Registering a new binary format
1122 -------------------------------
1124 To register a new binary format you have to issue the command
1126 echo :name:type:offset:magic:mask:interpreter: > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
1130 with appropriate name (the name for the /proc-dir entry), offset (defaults to
1131 0, if omitted), magic, mask (which can be omitted, defaults to all 0xff) and
1132 last but not least, the interpreter that is to be invoked (for example and
1133 testing /bin/echo). Type can be M for usual magic matching or E for filename
1134 extension matching (give extension in place of magic).
1136 Check or reset the status of the binary format handler
1137 ------------------------------------------------------
1139 If you do a cat on the file /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status, you will get the
1140 current status (enabled/disabled) of binfmt_misc. Change the status by echoing
1141 0 (disables) or 1 (enables) or -1 (caution: this clears all previously
1142 registered binary formats) to status. For example echo 0 > status to disable
1143 binfmt_misc (temporarily).
1145 Status of a single handler
1146 --------------------------
1148 Each registered handler has an entry in /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. These files
1149 perform the same function as status, but their scope is limited to the actual
1150 binary format. By cating this file, you also receive all related information
1151 about the interpreter/magic of the binfmt.
1153 Example usage of binfmt_misc (emulate binfmt_java)
1154 --------------------------------------------------
1156 cd /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
1157 echo ':Java:M::\xca\xfe\xba\xbe::/usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper:' > register
1158 echo ':HTML:E::html::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register
1159 echo ':Applet:M::<!--applet::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register
1160 echo ':DEXE:M::\x0eDEX::/usr/bin/dosexec:' > register
1163 These four lines add support for Java executables and Java applets (like
1164 binfmt_java, additionally recognizing the .html extension with no need to put
1165 <!--applet> to every applet file). You have to install the JDK and the
1166 shell-script /usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper too. It works around the
1167 brokenness of the Java filename handling. To add a Java binary, just create a
1168 link to the class-file somewhere in the path.
1170 2.3 /proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters
1171 ------------------------------------------------
1173 This directory reflects general kernel behaviors. As I've said before, the
1174 contents depend on your configuration. Here you'll find the most important
1175 files, along with descriptions of what they mean and how to use them.
1180 The file contains three values; highwater, lowwater, and frequency.
1182 It exists only when BSD-style process accounting is enabled. These values
1183 control its behavior. If the free space on the file system where the log lives
1184 goes below lowwater percentage, accounting suspends. If it goes above
1185 highwater percentage, accounting resumes. Frequency determines how often you
1186 check the amount of free space (value is in seconds). Default settings are: 4,
1187 2, and 30. That is, suspend accounting if there is less than 2 percent free;
1188 resume it if we have a value of 3 or more percent; consider information about
1189 the amount of free space valid for 30 seconds
1194 When the value in this file is 0, ctrl-alt-del is trapped and sent to the init
1195 program to handle a graceful restart. However, when the value is greater that
1196 zero, Linux's reaction to this key combination will be an immediate reboot,
1197 without syncing its dirty buffers.
1200 When a program (like dosemu) has the keyboard in raw mode, the
1201 ctrl-alt-del is intercepted by the program before it ever reaches the
1202 kernel tty layer, and it is up to the program to decide what to do with
1205 domainname and hostname
1206 -----------------------
1208 These files can be controlled to set the NIS domainname and hostname of your
1209 box. For the classic darkstar.frop.org a simple:
1211 # echo "darkstar" > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname
1212 # echo "frop.org" > /proc/sys/kernel/domainname
1215 would suffice to set your hostname and NIS domainname.
1217 osrelease, ostype and version
1218 -----------------------------
1220 The names make it pretty obvious what these fields contain:
1222 > cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease
1225 > cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype
1228 > cat /proc/sys/kernel/version
1229 #4 Fri Oct 1 12:41:14 PDT 1999
1232 The files osrelease and ostype should be clear enough. Version needs a little
1233 more clarification. The #4 means that this is the 4th kernel built from this
1234 source base and the date after it indicates the time the kernel was built. The
1235 only way to tune these values is to rebuild the kernel.
1240 The value in this file represents the number of seconds the kernel waits
1241 before rebooting on a panic. When you use the software watchdog, the
1242 recommended setting is 60. If set to 0, the auto reboot after a kernel panic
1243 is disabled, which is the default setting.
1248 The four values in printk denote
1250 * default_message_loglevel,
1251 * minimum_console_loglevel and
1252 * default_console_loglevel
1255 These values influence printk() behavior when printing or logging error
1256 messages, which come from inside the kernel. See syslog(2) for more
1257 information on the different log levels.
1262 Messages with a higher priority than this will be printed to the console.
1264 default_message_level
1265 ---------------------
1267 Messages without an explicit priority will be printed with this priority.
1269 minimum_console_loglevel
1270 ------------------------
1272 Minimum (highest) value to which the console_loglevel can be set.
1274 default_console_loglevel
1275 ------------------------
1277 Default value for console_loglevel.
1282 This file shows the size of the generic SCSI (sg) buffer. At this point, you
1283 can't tune it yet, but you can change it at compile time by editing
1284 include/scsi/sg.h and changing the value of SG_BIG_BUFF.
1286 If you use a scanner with SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) you might want to set
1287 this to a higher value. Refer to the SANE documentation on this issue.
1292 The location where the modprobe binary is located. The kernel uses this
1293 program to load modules on demand.
1298 The value in this file affects behavior of handling NMI. When the value is
1299 non-zero, unknown NMI is trapped and then panic occurs. At that time, kernel
1300 debugging information is displayed on console.
1302 NMI switch that most IA32 servers have fires unknown NMI up, for example.
1303 If a system hangs up, try pressing the NMI switch.
1305 panic_on_unrecovered_nmi
1306 ------------------------
1308 The default Linux behaviour on an NMI of either memory or unknown is to continue
1309 operation. For many environments such as scientific computing it is preferable
1310 that the box is taken out and the error dealt with than an uncorrected
1311 parity/ECC error get propogated.
1313 A small number of systems do generate NMI's for bizarre random reasons such as
1314 power management so the default is off. That sysctl works like the existing
1315 panic controls already in that directory.
1320 Enables/Disables the NMI watchdog on x86 systems. When the value is non-zero
1321 the NMI watchdog is enabled and will continuously test all online cpus to
1322 determine whether or not they are still functioning properly. Currently,
1323 passing "nmi_watchdog=" parameter at boot time is required for this function
1326 If LAPIC NMI watchdog method is in use (nmi_watchdog=2 kernel parameter), the
1327 NMI watchdog shares registers with oprofile. By disabling the NMI watchdog,
1328 oprofile may have more registers to utilize.
1333 Maximum number of message queue ids on the system.
1334 This value scales to the amount of lowmem. It is automatically recomputed
1335 upon memory add/remove or ipc namespace creation/removal.
1336 When a value is written into this file, msgmni's value becomes fixed, i.e. it
1337 is not recomputed anymore when one of the above events occurs.
1338 Use auto_msgmni to change this behavior.
1343 Enables/Disables automatic recomputing of msgmni upon memory add/remove or
1344 upon ipc namespace creation/removal (see the msgmni description above).
1345 Echoing "1" into this file enables msgmni automatic recomputing.
1346 Echoing "0" turns it off.
1347 auto_msgmni default value is 1.
1350 2.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem
1351 -----------------------------------------------
1353 Please see: Documentation/sysctls/vm.txt for a description of these
1357 2.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters
1358 ----------------------------------------------
1360 Currently there is only support for CDROM drives, and for those, there is only
1361 one read-only file containing information about the CD-ROM drives attached to
1364 >cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info
1365 CD-ROM information, Id: cdrom.c 2.55 1999/04/25
1369 drive # of slots: 1 0
1373 Can change speed: 1 1
1374 Can select disk: 0 1
1375 Can read multisession: 1 1
1377 Reports media changed: 1 1
1381 You see two drives, sr0 and hdb, along with a list of their features.
1383 2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls
1384 ---------------------------------------------
1386 This directory contains four files, which enable or disable debugging for the
1387 RPC functions NFS, NFS-daemon, RPC and NLM. The default values are 0. They can
1388 be set to one to turn debugging on. (The default value is 0 for each)
1390 2.7 /proc/sys/net - Networking stuff
1391 ------------------------------------
1393 The interface to the networking parts of the kernel is located in
1394 /proc/sys/net. Table 2-3 shows all possible subdirectories. You may see only
1395 some of them, depending on your kernel's configuration.
1398 Table 2-3: Subdirectories in /proc/sys/net
1399 ..............................................................................
1400 Directory Content Directory Content
1401 core General parameter appletalk Appletalk protocol
1402 unix Unix domain sockets netrom NET/ROM
1403 802 E802 protocol ax25 AX25
1404 ethernet Ethernet protocol rose X.25 PLP layer
1405 ipv4 IP version 4 x25 X.25 protocol
1406 ipx IPX token-ring IBM token ring
1407 bridge Bridging decnet DEC net
1409 ..............................................................................
1411 We will concentrate on IP networking here. Since AX15, X.25, and DEC Net are
1412 only minor players in the Linux world, we'll skip them in this chapter. You'll
1413 find some short info on Appletalk and IPX further on in this chapter. Review
1414 the online documentation and the kernel source to get a detailed view of the
1415 parameters for those protocols. In this section we'll discuss the
1416 subdirectories printed in bold letters in the table above. As default values
1417 are suitable for most needs, there is no need to change these values.
1419 /proc/sys/net/core - Network core options
1420 -----------------------------------------
1425 The default setting of the socket receive buffer in bytes.
1430 The maximum receive socket buffer size in bytes.
1435 The default setting (in bytes) of the socket send buffer.
1440 The maximum send socket buffer size in bytes.
1442 message_burst and message_cost
1443 ------------------------------
1445 These parameters are used to limit the warning messages written to the kernel
1446 log from the networking code. They enforce a rate limit to make a
1447 denial-of-service attack impossible. A higher message_cost factor, results in
1448 fewer messages that will be written. Message_burst controls when messages will
1449 be dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to one every five
1455 This controls console messages from the networking stack that can occur because
1456 of problems on the network like duplicate address or bad checksums. Normally,
1457 this should be enabled, but if the problem persists the messages can be
1463 Maximum number of packets taken from all interfaces in one polling cycle (NAPI
1464 poll). In one polling cycle interfaces which are registered to polling are
1465 probed in a round-robin manner. The limit of packets in one such probe can be
1466 set per-device via sysfs class/net/<device>/weight .
1471 Maximum number of packets, queued on the INPUT side, when the interface
1472 receives packets faster than kernel can process them.
1477 Maximum ancillary buffer size allowed per socket. Ancillary data is a sequence
1478 of struct cmsghdr structures with appended data.
1480 /proc/sys/net/unix - Parameters for Unix domain sockets
1481 -------------------------------------------------------
1483 There are only two files in this subdirectory. They control the delays for
1484 deleting and destroying socket descriptors.
1486 2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings
1487 --------------------------------------
1489 IP version 4 is still the most used protocol in Unix networking. It will be
1490 replaced by IP version 6 in the next couple of years, but for the moment it's
1491 the de facto standard for the internet and is used in most networking
1492 environments around the world. Because of the importance of this protocol,
1493 we'll have a deeper look into the subtree controlling the behavior of the IPv4
1494 subsystem of the Linux kernel.
1496 Let's start with the entries in /proc/sys/net/ipv4.
1501 icmp_echo_ignore_all and icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts
1502 ----------------------------------------------------
1504 Turn on (1) or off (0), if the kernel should ignore all ICMP ECHO requests, or
1505 just those to broadcast and multicast addresses.
1507 Please note that if you accept ICMP echo requests with a broadcast/multi\-cast
1508 destination address your network may be used as an exploder for denial of
1509 service packet flooding attacks to other hosts.
1511 icmp_destunreach_rate, icmp_echoreply_rate, icmp_paramprob_rate and icmp_timeexeed_rate
1512 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1514 Sets limits for sending ICMP packets to specific targets. A value of zero
1515 disables all limiting. Any positive value sets the maximum package rate in
1516 hundredth of a second (on Intel systems).
1524 This file contains the number one if the host received its IP configuration by
1525 RARP, BOOTP, DHCP or a similar mechanism. Otherwise it is zero.
1530 TTL (Time To Live) for IPv4 interfaces. This is simply the maximum number of
1531 hops a packet may travel.
1536 Enable dynamic socket address rewriting on interface address change. This is
1537 useful for dialup interface with changing IP addresses.
1542 Enable or disable forwarding of IP packages between interfaces. Changing this
1543 value resets all other parameters to their default values. They differ if the
1544 kernel is configured as host or router.
1549 Range of ports used by TCP and UDP to choose the local port. Contains two
1550 numbers, the first number is the lowest port, the second number the highest
1551 local port. Default is 1024-4999. Should be changed to 32768-61000 for
1557 Global switch to turn path MTU discovery off. It can also be set on a per
1558 socket basis by the applications or on a per route basis.
1563 Enable/disable debugging of IP masquerading.
1565 IP fragmentation settings
1566 -------------------------
1568 ipfrag_high_trash and ipfrag_low_trash
1569 --------------------------------------
1571 Maximum memory used to reassemble IP fragments. When ipfrag_high_thresh bytes
1572 of memory is allocated for this purpose, the fragment handler will toss
1573 packets until ipfrag_low_thresh is reached.
1578 Time in seconds to keep an IP fragment in memory.
1586 This file controls the use of the ECN bit in the IPv4 headers. This is a new
1587 feature about Explicit Congestion Notification, but some routers and firewalls
1588 block traffic that has this bit set, so it could be necessary to echo 0 to
1589 /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn if you want to talk to these sites. For more info
1590 you could read RFC2481.
1592 tcp_retrans_collapse
1593 --------------------
1595 Bug-to-bug compatibility with some broken printers. On retransmit, try to send
1596 larger packets to work around bugs in certain TCP stacks. Can be turned off by
1599 tcp_keepalive_probes
1600 --------------------
1602 Number of keep alive probes TCP sends out, until it decides that the
1603 connection is broken.
1608 How often TCP sends out keep alive messages, when keep alive is enabled. The
1614 Number of times initial SYNs for a TCP connection attempt will be
1615 retransmitted. Should not be higher than 255. This is only the timeout for
1616 outgoing connections, for incoming connections the number of retransmits is
1617 defined by tcp_retries1.
1622 Enable select acknowledgments after RFC2018.
1627 Enable timestamps as defined in RFC1323.
1632 Enable the strict RFC793 interpretation of the TCP urgent pointer field. The
1633 default is to use the BSD compatible interpretation of the urgent pointer
1634 pointing to the first byte after the urgent data. The RFC793 interpretation is
1635 to have it point to the last byte of urgent data. Enabling this option may
1636 lead to interoperability problems. Disabled by default.
1641 Only valid when the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_SYNCOOKIES. Send out
1642 syncookies when the syn backlog queue of a socket overflows. This is to ward
1643 off the common 'syn flood attack'. Disabled by default.
1645 Note that the concept of a socket backlog is abandoned. This means the peer
1646 may not receive reliable error messages from an over loaded server with
1652 Enable window scaling as defined in RFC1323.
1657 The length of time in seconds it takes to receive a final FIN before the
1658 socket is always closed. This is strictly a violation of the TCP
1659 specification, but required to prevent denial-of-service attacks.
1664 Indicates how many keep alive probes are sent per slow timer run. Should not
1665 be set too high to prevent bursts.
1670 Length of the per socket backlog queue. Since Linux 2.2 the backlog specified
1671 in listen(2) only specifies the length of the backlog queue of already
1672 established sockets. When more connection requests arrive Linux starts to drop
1673 packets. When syncookies are enabled the packets are still answered and the
1674 maximum queue is effectively ignored.
1679 Defines how often an answer to a TCP connection request is retransmitted
1685 Defines how often a TCP packet is retransmitted before giving up.
1687 Interface specific settings
1688 ---------------------------
1690 In the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf you'll find one subdirectory for each
1691 interface the system knows about and one directory calls all. Changes in the
1692 all subdirectory affect all interfaces, whereas changes in the other
1693 subdirectories affect only one interface. All directories have the same
1699 This switch decides if the kernel accepts ICMP redirect messages or not. The
1700 default is 'yes' if the kernel is configured for a regular host and 'no' for a
1701 router configuration.
1706 Should source routed packages be accepted or declined. The default is
1707 dependent on the kernel configuration. It's 'yes' for routers and 'no' for
1713 Accept packets with source address 0.b.c.d with destinations not to this host
1714 as local ones. It is supposed that a BOOTP relay daemon will catch and forward
1717 The default is 0, since this feature is not implemented yet (kernel version
1723 Enable or disable IP forwarding on this interface.
1728 Log packets with source addresses with no known route to kernel log.
1733 Do multicast routing. The kernel needs to be compiled with CONFIG_MROUTE and a
1734 multicast routing daemon is required.
1739 Does (1) or does not (0) perform proxy ARP.
1744 Integer value determines if a source validation should be made. 1 means yes, 0
1745 means no. Disabled by default, but local/broadcast address spoofing is always
1748 If you set this to 1 on a router that is the only connection for a network to
1749 the net, it will prevent spoofing attacks against your internal networks
1750 (external addresses can still be spoofed), without the need for additional
1756 Accept ICMP redirect messages only for gateways, listed in default gateway
1757 list. Enabled by default.
1762 If it is not set the kernel does not assume that different subnets on this
1763 device can communicate directly. Default setting is 'yes'.
1768 Determines whether to send ICMP redirects to other hosts.
1773 The directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route contains several file to control
1776 error_burst and error_cost
1777 --------------------------
1779 These parameters are used to limit how many ICMP destination unreachable to
1780 send from the host in question. ICMP destination unreachable messages are
1781 sent when we cannot reach the next hop while trying to transmit a packet.
1782 It will also print some error messages to kernel logs if someone is ignoring
1783 our ICMP redirects. The higher the error_cost factor is, the fewer
1784 destination unreachable and error messages will be let through. Error_burst
1785 controls when destination unreachable messages and error messages will be
1786 dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to five every second.
1791 Writing to this file results in a flush of the routing cache.
1793 gc_elasticity, gc_interval, gc_min_interval_ms, gc_timeout, gc_thresh
1794 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
1796 Values to control the frequency and behavior of the garbage collection
1797 algorithm for the routing cache. gc_min_interval is deprecated and replaced
1798 by gc_min_interval_ms.
1804 Maximum size of the routing cache. Old entries will be purged once the cache
1805 reached has this size.
1807 redirect_load, redirect_number
1808 ------------------------------
1810 Factors which determine if more ICPM redirects should be sent to a specific
1811 host. No redirects will be sent once the load limit or the maximum number of
1812 redirects has been reached.
1817 Timeout for redirects. After this period redirects will be sent again, even if
1818 this has been stopped, because the load or number limit has been reached.
1820 Network Neighbor handling
1821 -------------------------
1823 Settings about how to handle connections with direct neighbors (nodes attached
1824 to the same link) can be found in the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh.
1826 As we saw it in the conf directory, there is a default subdirectory which
1827 holds the default values, and one directory for each interface. The contents
1828 of the directories are identical, with the single exception that the default
1829 settings contain additional options to set garbage collection parameters.
1831 In the interface directories you'll find the following entries:
1833 base_reachable_time, base_reachable_time_ms
1834 -------------------------------------------
1836 A base value used for computing the random reachable time value as specified
1839 Expression of base_reachable_time, which is deprecated, is in seconds.
1840 Expression of base_reachable_time_ms is in milliseconds.
1842 retrans_time, retrans_time_ms
1843 -----------------------------
1845 The time between retransmitted Neighbor Solicitation messages.
1846 Used for address resolution and to determine if a neighbor is
1849 Expression of retrans_time, which is deprecated, is in 1/100 seconds (for
1850 IPv4) or in jiffies (for IPv6).
1851 Expression of retrans_time_ms is in milliseconds.
1856 Maximum queue length for a pending arp request - the number of packets which
1857 are accepted from other layers while the ARP address is still resolved.
1862 Maximum for random delay of answers to neighbor solicitation messages in
1863 jiffies (1/100 sec). Not yet implemented (Linux does not have anycast support
1869 Maximum number of retries for unicast solicitation.
1874 Maximum number of retries for multicast solicitation.
1876 delay_first_probe_time
1877 ----------------------
1879 Delay for the first time probe if the neighbor is reachable. (see
1885 An ARP/neighbor entry is only replaced with a new one if the old is at least
1886 locktime old. This prevents ARP cache thrashing.
1891 Maximum time (real time is random [0..proxytime]) before answering to an ARP
1892 request for which we have an proxy ARP entry. In some cases, this is used to
1893 prevent network flooding.
1898 Maximum queue length of the delayed proxy arp timer. (see proxy_delay).
1903 Determines the number of requests to send to the user level ARP daemon. Use 0
1909 Determines how often to check for stale ARP entries. After an ARP entry is
1910 stale it will be resolved again (which is useful when an IP address migrates
1911 to another machine). When ucast_solicit is greater than 0 it first tries to
1912 send an ARP packet directly to the known host When that fails and
1913 mcast_solicit is greater than 0, an ARP request is broadcasted.
1918 The /proc/sys/net/appletalk directory holds the Appletalk configuration data
1919 when Appletalk is loaded. The configurable parameters are:
1924 The amount of time we keep an ARP entry before expiring it. Used to age out
1930 The amount of time we will spend trying to resolve an Appletalk address.
1932 aarp-retransmit-limit
1933 ---------------------
1935 The number of times we will retransmit a query before giving up.
1940 Controls the rate at which expires are checked.
1942 The directory /proc/net/appletalk holds the list of active Appletalk sockets
1945 The fields indicate the DDP type, the local address (in network:node format)
1946 the remote address, the size of the transmit pending queue, the size of the
1947 received queue (bytes waiting for applications to read) the state and the uid
1950 /proc/net/atalk_iface lists all the interfaces configured for appletalk.It
1951 shows the name of the interface, its Appletalk address, the network range on
1952 that address (or network number for phase 1 networks), and the status of the
1955 /proc/net/atalk_route lists each known network route. It lists the target
1956 (network) that the route leads to, the router (may be directly connected), the
1957 route flags, and the device the route is using.
1962 The IPX protocol has no tunable values in proc/sys/net.
1964 The IPX protocol does, however, provide proc/net/ipx. This lists each IPX
1965 socket giving the local and remote addresses in Novell format (that is
1966 network:node:port). In accordance with the strange Novell tradition,
1967 everything but the port is in hex. Not_Connected is displayed for sockets that
1968 are not tied to a specific remote address. The Tx and Rx queue sizes indicate
1969 the number of bytes pending for transmission and reception. The state
1970 indicates the state the socket is in and the uid is the owning uid of the
1973 The /proc/net/ipx_interface file lists all IPX interfaces. For each interface
1974 it gives the network number, the node number, and indicates if the network is
1975 the primary network. It also indicates which device it is bound to (or
1976 Internal for internal networks) and the Frame Type if appropriate. Linux
1977 supports 802.3, 802.2, 802.2 SNAP and DIX (Blue Book) ethernet framing for
1980 The /proc/net/ipx_route table holds a list of IPX routes. For each route it
1981 gives the destination network, the router node (or Directly) and the network
1982 address of the router (or Connected) for internal networks.
1984 2.11 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem
1985 ----------------------------------------------------------
1987 The "mqueue" filesystem provides the necessary kernel features to enable the
1988 creation of a user space library that implements the POSIX message queues
1989 API (as noted by the MSG tag in the POSIX 1003.1-2001 version of the System
1990 Interfaces specification.)
1992 The "mqueue" filesystem contains values for determining/setting the amount of
1993 resources used by the file system.
1995 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/queues_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the
1996 maximum number of message queues allowed on the system.
1998 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msg_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the
1999 maximum number of messages in a queue value. In fact it is the limiting value
2000 for another (user) limit which is set in mq_open invocation. This attribute of
2001 a queue must be less or equal then msg_max.
2003 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msgsize_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the
2004 maximum message size value (it is every message queue's attribute set during
2007 2.12 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score
2008 ------------------------------------------------------
2010 This file can be used to adjust the score used to select which processes
2011 should be killed in an out-of-memory situation. Giving it a high score will
2012 increase the likelihood of this process being killed by the oom-killer. Valid
2013 values are in the range -16 to +15, plus the special value -17, which disables
2014 oom-killing altogether for this process.
2016 The process to be killed in an out-of-memory situation is selected among all others
2017 based on its badness score. This value equals the original memory size of the process
2018 and is then updated according to its CPU time (utime + stime) and the
2019 run time (uptime - start time). The longer it runs the smaller is the score.
2020 Badness score is divided by the square root of the CPU time and then by
2021 the double square root of the run time.
2023 Swapped out tasks are killed first. Half of each child's memory size is added to
2024 the parent's score if they do not share the same memory. Thus forking servers
2025 are the prime candidates to be killed. Having only one 'hungry' child will make
2026 parent less preferable than the child.
2028 /proc/<pid>/oom_score shows process' current badness score.
2030 The following heuristics are then applied:
2031 * if the task was reniced, its score doubles
2032 * superuser or direct hardware access tasks (CAP_SYS_ADMIN, CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
2033 or CAP_SYS_RAWIO) have their score divided by 4
2034 * if oom condition happened in one cpuset and checked task does not belong
2035 to it, its score is divided by 8
2036 * the resulting score is multiplied by two to the power of oom_adj, i.e.
2037 points <<= oom_adj when it is positive and
2038 points >>= -(oom_adj) otherwise
2040 The task with the highest badness score is then selected and its children
2041 are killed, process itself will be killed in an OOM situation when it does
2042 not have children or some of them disabled oom like described above.
2044 2.13 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score
2045 -------------------------------------------------------------
2047 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2048 This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for
2049 any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_adj to tune which
2050 process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation.
2052 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2054 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2055 Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the
2056 need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the
2057 /proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo
2058 command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings
2060 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2062 2.14 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
2063 -------------------------------------------------------
2065 This file contains IO statistics for each running process
2070 test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat &
2073 test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io
2079 write_bytes: 323932160
2080 cancelled_write_bytes: 0
2089 I/O counter: chars read
2090 The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This
2091 is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread().
2092 It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual
2093 physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from
2100 I/O counter: chars written
2101 The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written
2102 to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar.
2108 I/O counter: read syscalls
2109 Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read()
2116 I/O counter: write syscalls
2117 Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like
2118 write() and pwrite().
2124 I/O counter: bytes read
2125 Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to
2126 be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is
2127 accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and
2128 CIFS at a later time>
2134 I/O counter: bytes written
2135 Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to
2136 the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time.
2139 cancelled_write_bytes
2140 ---------------------
2142 The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and
2143 then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have
2144 been accounted as having caused 1MB of write.
2145 In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen,
2146 by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task
2147 truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted
2148 for (in it's write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that
2149 from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing
2156 At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if
2157 process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of
2158 those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result.
2161 More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in
2162 Documentation/accounting.
2164 2.15 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
2165 ---------------------------------------------------------------
2166 When a process is dumped, all anonymous memory is written to a core file as
2167 long as the size of the core file isn't limited. But sometimes we don't want
2168 to dump some memory segments, for example, huge shared memory. Conversely,
2169 sometimes we want to save file-backed memory segments into a core file, not
2170 only the individual files.
2172 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter allows you to customize which memory segments
2173 will be dumped when the <pid> process is dumped. coredump_filter is a bitmask
2174 of memory types. If a bit of the bitmask is set, memory segments of the
2175 corresponding memory type are dumped, otherwise they are not dumped.
2177 The following 7 memory types are supported:
2178 - (bit 0) anonymous private memory
2179 - (bit 1) anonymous shared memory
2180 - (bit 2) file-backed private memory
2181 - (bit 3) file-backed shared memory
2182 - (bit 4) ELF header pages in file-backed private memory areas (it is
2183 effective only if the bit 2 is cleared)
2184 - (bit 5) hugetlb private memory
2185 - (bit 6) hugetlb shared memory
2187 Note that MMIO pages such as frame buffer are never dumped and vDSO pages
2188 are always dumped regardless of the bitmask status.
2190 Note bit 0-4 doesn't effect any hugetlb memory. hugetlb memory are only
2191 effected by bit 5-6.
2193 Default value of coredump_filter is 0x23; this means all anonymous memory
2194 segments and hugetlb private memory are dumped.
2196 If you don't want to dump all shared memory segments attached to pid 1234,
2197 write 0x21 to the process's proc file.
2199 $ echo 0x21 > /proc/1234/coredump_filter
2201 When a new process is created, the process inherits the bitmask status from its
2202 parent. It is useful to set up coredump_filter before the program runs.
2205 $ echo 0x7 > /proc/self/coredump_filter
2208 2.16 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
2209 --------------------------------------------------------
2211 This file contains lines of the form:
2213 36 35 98:0 /mnt1 /mnt2 rw,noatime master:1 - ext3 /dev/root rw,errors=continue
2214 (1)(2)(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
2216 (1) mount ID: unique identifier of the mount (may be reused after umount)
2217 (2) parent ID: ID of parent (or of self for the top of the mount tree)
2218 (3) major:minor: value of st_dev for files on filesystem
2219 (4) root: root of the mount within the filesystem
2220 (5) mount point: mount point relative to the process's root
2221 (6) mount options: per mount options
2222 (7) optional fields: zero or more fields of the form "tag[:value]"
2223 (8) separator: marks the end of the optional fields
2224 (9) filesystem type: name of filesystem of the form "type[.subtype]"
2225 (10) mount source: filesystem specific information or "none"
2226 (11) super options: per super block options
2228 Parsers should ignore all unrecognised optional fields. Currently the
2229 possible optional fields are:
2231 shared:X mount is shared in peer group X
2232 master:X mount is slave to peer group X
2233 propagate_from:X mount is slave and receives propagation from peer group X (*)
2234 unbindable mount is unbindable
2236 (*) X is the closest dominant peer group under the process's root. If
2237 X is the immediate master of the mount, or if there's no dominant peer
2238 group under the same root, then only the "master:X" field is present
2239 and not the "propagate_from:X" field.
2241 For more information on mount propagation see:
2243 Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt
2245 2.17 /proc/sys/fs/epoll - Configuration options for the epoll interface
2246 --------------------------------------------------------
2248 This directory contains configuration options for the epoll(7) interface.
2253 This is the maximum number of epoll file descriptors that a single user can
2254 have open at a given time. The default value is 128, and should be enough
2260 Every epoll file descriptor can store a number of files to be monitored
2261 for event readiness. Each one of these monitored files constitutes a "watch".
2262 This configuration option sets the maximum number of "watches" that are
2263 allowed for each user.
2264 Each "watch" costs roughly 90 bytes on a 32bit kernel, and roughly 160 bytes
2266 The current default value for max_user_watches is the 1/32 of the available
2267 low memory, divided for the "watch" cost in bytes.
2270 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
git.openpandora.org / pandora-kernel.git / blob