/proc Directory: Explained
Virtual filesystem that contains information about the system's processes, memory, and other hardware components
The /proc
directory is a virtual filesystem that contains information about the system's processes, memory, and other hardware components.
It is dynamically generated by the kernel and does not exist as a traditional directory on disk.
Here is a list of important files and directories in the /proc
directory and their meanings:
/proc/bus
- Contains information about the system's buses, such as PCI and USB./proc/cmdline
- Contains the command-line arguments that were passed to the kernel at boot time./proc/cpuinfo
- Contains information about the processor, including the model, vendor, and features./proc/devices
- Lists the device drivers that are currently loaded on the system./proc/diskstats
- Contains statistics about the block devices on the system./proc/dma
- Contains information about the Direct Memory Access channels on the system./proc/filesystems
- Lists the filesystems supported by the kernel./proc/interrupts
- Lists the interrupts that are currently in use on the system./proc/meminfo
- Contains information about the system's memory usage and availability./proc/modules
- Lists the kernel modules that are currently loaded on the system./proc/mounts
- Lists the filesystems that are currently mounted on the system./proc/net
- Contains information about the network interfaces and protocols on the system./proc/partitions
- Lists the disk partitions on the system./proc/scsi
- Contains information about the SCSI devices on the system./proc/stat
- Contains various statistics about the system, including CPU usage and process counts./proc/swaps
- Lists the swap spaces on the system./proc/sys
- Contains various system parameters that can be configured through the sysctl command./proc/sysrq-trigger
- Can be used to trigger a kernel panic by writing a character to this file./proc/uptime
- Contains the uptime of the system, in seconds./proc/version
- Contains the version of the Linux kernel and the compiler that was used to build it./proc/vmstat
- Contains statistics about the virtual memory subsystem./proc/zoneinfo
- Contains information about the system's memory zones./proc/[pid]
- Each process on the system has a directory under/proc
with the process ID as the name. These directories contain information about the corresponding process, such as its memory usage and status.