| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |                        T H E  /proc   F I L E S Y S T E M | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | /proc/sys         Terrehon Bowden <terrehon@pacbell.net>        October 7 1999 | 
 |                   Bodo Bauer <bb@ricochet.net> | 
 |  | 
 | 2.4.x update	  Jorge Nerin <comandante@zaralinux.com>      November 14 2000 | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | Version 1.3                                              Kernel version 2.2.12 | 
 | 					      Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4 | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Table of Contents | 
 | ----------------- | 
 |  | 
 |   0     Preface | 
 |   0.1	Introduction/Credits | 
 |   0.2	Legal Stuff | 
 |  | 
 |   1	Collecting System Information | 
 |   1.1	Process-Specific Subdirectories | 
 |   1.2	Kernel data | 
 |   1.3	IDE devices in /proc/ide | 
 |   1.4	Networking info in /proc/net | 
 |   1.5	SCSI info | 
 |   1.6	Parallel port info in /proc/parport | 
 |   1.7	TTY info in /proc/tty | 
 |   1.8	Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat | 
 |  | 
 |   2	Modifying System Parameters | 
 |   2.1	/proc/sys/fs - File system data | 
 |   2.2	/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats | 
 |   2.3	/proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters | 
 |   2.4	/proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem | 
 |   2.5	/proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters | 
 |   2.6	/proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls | 
 |   2.7	/proc/sys/net - Networking stuff | 
 |   2.8	/proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings | 
 |   2.9	Appletalk | 
 |   2.10	IPX | 
 |   2.11	/proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem | 
 |   2.12	/proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score | 
 |   2.13	/proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score | 
 |   2.14	/proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields | 
 |   2.15	/proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings | 
 |   2.16	/proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | Preface | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | 0.1 Introduction/Credits | 
 | ------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | This documentation is  part of a soon (or  so we hope) to be  released book on | 
 | the SuSE  Linux distribution. As  there is  no complete documentation  for the | 
 | /proc file system and we've used  many freely available sources to write these | 
 | chapters, it  seems only fair  to give the work  back to the  Linux community. | 
 | This work is  based on the 2.2.*  kernel version and the  upcoming 2.4.*. I'm | 
 | afraid it's still far from complete, but we  hope it will be useful. As far as | 
 | we know, it is the first 'all-in-one' document about the /proc file system. It | 
 | is focused  on the Intel  x86 hardware,  so if you  are looking for  PPC, ARM, | 
 | SPARC, AXP, etc., features, you probably  won't find what you are looking for. | 
 | It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols - sorry. But | 
 | additions and patches  are welcome and will  be added to this  document if you | 
 | mail them to Bodo. | 
 |  | 
 | We'd like  to  thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of | 
 | other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a | 
 | special thank  you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily | 
 | to create  this  document,  as well as the additional information he provided. | 
 | Thanks to  everybody  else  who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel | 
 | and helped create a great piece of software... :) | 
 |  | 
 | If you  have  any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to | 
 | contact Bodo  Bauer  at  bb@ricochet.net.  We'll  be happy to add them to this | 
 | document. | 
 |  | 
 | The   latest   version    of   this   document   is    available   online   at | 
 | http://skaro.nightcrawler.com/~bb/Docs/Proc as HTML version. | 
 |  | 
 | If  the above  direction does  not works  for you,  ypu could  try the  kernel | 
 | mailing  list  at  linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org  and/or try  to  reach  me  at | 
 | comandante@zaralinux.com. | 
 |  | 
 | 0.2 Legal Stuff | 
 | --------------- | 
 |  | 
 | We don't  guarantee  the  correctness  of this document, and if you come to us | 
 | complaining about  how  you  screwed  up  your  system  because  of  incorrect | 
 | documentation, we won't feel responsible... | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | In This Chapter | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | * Investigating  the  properties  of  the  pseudo  file  system  /proc and its | 
 |   ability to provide information on the running Linux system | 
 | * Examining /proc's structure | 
 | * Uncovering  various  information  about the kernel and the processes running | 
 |   on the system | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | The proc  file  system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the | 
 | kernel. It  can  be  used to obtain information about the system and to change | 
 | certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl). | 
 |  | 
 | First, we'll  take  a  look  at the read-only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we | 
 | show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings. | 
 |  | 
 | 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories | 
 | ----------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The directory  /proc  contains  (among other things) one subdirectory for each | 
 | process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID). | 
 |  | 
 | The link  self  points  to  the  process reading the file system. Each process | 
 | subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1-1. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-1: Process specific entries in /proc  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File		Content | 
 |  clear_refs	Clears page referenced bits shown in smaps output | 
 |  cmdline	Command line arguments | 
 |  cpu		Current and last cpu in which it was executed	(2.4)(smp) | 
 |  cwd		Link to the current working directory | 
 |  environ	Values of environment variables | 
 |  exe		Link to the executable of this process | 
 |  fd		Directory, which contains all file descriptors | 
 |  maps		Memory maps to executables and library files	(2.4) | 
 |  mem		Memory held by this process | 
 |  root		Link to the root directory of this process | 
 |  stat		Process status | 
 |  statm		Process memory status information | 
 |  status		Process status in human readable form | 
 |  wchan		If CONFIG_KALLSYMS is set, a pre-decoded wchan | 
 |  smaps		Extension based on maps, the rss size for each mapped file | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is | 
 | read the file /proc/PID/status: | 
 |  | 
 |   >cat /proc/self/status  | 
 |   Name:   cat  | 
 |   State:  R (running)  | 
 |   Pid:    5452  | 
 |   PPid:   743  | 
 |   TracerPid:      0						(2.4) | 
 |   Uid:    501     501     501     501  | 
 |   Gid:    100     100     100     100  | 
 |   Groups: 100 14 16  | 
 |   VmSize:     1112 kB  | 
 |   VmLck:         0 kB  | 
 |   VmRSS:       348 kB  | 
 |   VmData:       24 kB  | 
 |   VmStk:        12 kB  | 
 |   VmExe:         8 kB  | 
 |   VmLib:      1044 kB  | 
 |   SigPnd: 0000000000000000  | 
 |   SigBlk: 0000000000000000  | 
 |   SigIgn: 0000000000000000  | 
 |   SigCgt: 0000000000000000  | 
 |   CapInh: 00000000fffffeff  | 
 |   CapPrm: 0000000000000000  | 
 |   CapEff: 0000000000000000  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with | 
 | the ps  command.  In  fact,  ps  uses  the  proc  file  system  to  obtain its | 
 | information. The  statm  file  contains  more  detailed  information about the | 
 | process memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-2.  The stat | 
 | file contains details information about the process itself.  Its fields are | 
 | explained in Table 1-3. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-2: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3) | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  Field    Content | 
 |  size     total program size (pages)		(same as VmSize in status) | 
 |  resident size of memory portions (pages)	(same as VmRSS in status) | 
 |  shared   number of pages that are shared	(i.e. backed by a file) | 
 |  trs      number of pages that are 'code'	(not including libs; broken, | 
 | 							includes data segment) | 
 |  lrs      number of pages of library		(always 0 on 2.6) | 
 |  drs      number of pages of data/stack		(including libs; broken, | 
 | 							includes library text) | 
 |  dt       number of dirty pages			(always 0 on 2.6) | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-3: Contents of the stat files (as of 2.6.22-rc3) | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  Field          Content | 
 |   pid           process id | 
 |   tcomm         filename of the executable | 
 |   state         state (R is running, S is sleeping, D is sleeping in an | 
 |                 uninterruptible wait, Z is zombie, T is traced or stopped) | 
 |   ppid          process id of the parent process | 
 |   pgrp          pgrp of the process | 
 |   sid           session id | 
 |   tty_nr        tty the process uses | 
 |   tty_pgrp      pgrp of the tty | 
 |   flags         task flags | 
 |   min_flt       number of minor faults | 
 |   cmin_flt      number of minor faults with child's | 
 |   maj_flt       number of major faults | 
 |   cmaj_flt      number of major faults with child's | 
 |   utime         user mode jiffies | 
 |   stime         kernel mode jiffies | 
 |   cutime        user mode jiffies with child's | 
 |   cstime        kernel mode jiffies with child's | 
 |   priority      priority level | 
 |   nice          nice level | 
 |   num_threads   number of threads | 
 |   it_real_value	(obsolete, always 0) | 
 |   start_time    time the process started after system boot | 
 |   vsize         virtual memory size | 
 |   rss           resident set memory size | 
 |   rsslim        current limit in bytes on the rss | 
 |   start_code    address above which program text can run | 
 |   end_code      address below which program text can run | 
 |   start_stack   address of the start of the stack | 
 |   esp           current value of ESP | 
 |   eip           current value of EIP | 
 |   pending       bitmap of pending signals (obsolete) | 
 |   blocked       bitmap of blocked signals (obsolete) | 
 |   sigign        bitmap of ignored signals (obsolete) | 
 |   sigcatch      bitmap of catched signals (obsolete) | 
 |   wchan         address where process went to sleep | 
 |   0             (place holder) | 
 |   0             (place holder) | 
 |   exit_signal   signal to send to parent thread on exit | 
 |   task_cpu      which CPU the task is scheduled on | 
 |   rt_priority   realtime priority | 
 |   policy        scheduling policy (man sched_setscheduler) | 
 |   blkio_ticks   time spent waiting for block IO | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 1.2 Kernel data | 
 | --------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Similar to  the  process entries, the kernel data files give information about | 
 | the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in | 
 | /proc and  are  listed  in Table 1-4. Not all of these will be present in your | 
 | system. It  depends  on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which | 
 | files are there, and which are missing. | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-4: Kernel info in /proc | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File        Content                                            | 
 |  apm         Advanced power management info                     | 
 |  buddyinfo   Kernel memory allocator information (see text)	(2.5) | 
 |  bus         Directory containing bus specific information      | 
 |  cmdline     Kernel command line                                | 
 |  cpuinfo     Info about the CPU                                 | 
 |  devices     Available devices (block and character)            | 
 |  dma         Used DMS channels                                  | 
 |  filesystems Supported filesystems                              | 
 |  driver	     Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4) | 
 |  execdomains Execdomains, related to security			(2.4) | 
 |  fb	     Frame Buffer devices				(2.4) | 
 |  fs	     File system parameters, currently nfs/exports	(2.4) | 
 |  ide         Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem  | 
 |  interrupts  Interrupt usage                                    | 
 |  iomem	     Memory map						(2.4) | 
 |  ioports     I/O port usage                                     | 
 |  irq	     Masks for irq to cpu affinity			(2.4)(smp?) | 
 |  isapnp	     ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info				(2.4) | 
 |  kcore       Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))    | 
 |  kmsg        Kernel messages                                    | 
 |  ksyms       Kernel symbol table                                | 
 |  loadavg     Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes                 | 
 |  locks       Kernel locks                                       | 
 |  meminfo     Memory info                                        | 
 |  misc        Miscellaneous                                      | 
 |  modules     List of loaded modules                             | 
 |  mounts      Mounted filesystems                                | 
 |  net         Networking info (see text)                         | 
 |  partitions  Table of partitions known to the system            | 
 |  pci	     Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/, | 
 |              decoupled by lspci					(2.4) | 
 |  rtc         Real time clock                                    | 
 |  scsi        SCSI info (see text)                               | 
 |  slabinfo    Slab pool info                                     | 
 |  stat        Overall statistics                                 | 
 |  swaps       Swap space utilization                             | 
 |  sys         See chapter 2                                      | 
 |  sysvipc     Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm)		(2.4) | 
 |  tty	     Info of tty drivers | 
 |  uptime      System uptime                                      | 
 |  version     Kernel version                                     | 
 |  video	     bttv info of video resources			(2.4) | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | You can,  for  example,  check  which interrupts are currently in use and what | 
 | they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/interrupts  | 
 |              CPU0         | 
 |     0:    8728810          XT-PIC  timer  | 
 |     1:        895          XT-PIC  keyboard  | 
 |     2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade  | 
 |     3:     531695          XT-PIC  aha152x  | 
 |     4:    2014133          XT-PIC  serial  | 
 |     5:      44401          XT-PIC  pcnet_cs  | 
 |     8:          2          XT-PIC  rtc  | 
 |    11:          8          XT-PIC  i82365  | 
 |    12:     182918          XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse  | 
 |    13:          1          XT-PIC  fpu  | 
 |    14:    1232265          XT-PIC  ide0  | 
 |    15:          7          XT-PIC  ide1  | 
 |   NMI:          0  | 
 |  | 
 | In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the | 
 | output of a SMP machine): | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/interrupts  | 
 |  | 
 |              CPU0       CPU1        | 
 |     0:    1243498    1214548    IO-APIC-edge  timer | 
 |     1:       8949       8958    IO-APIC-edge  keyboard | 
 |     2:          0          0          XT-PIC  cascade | 
 |     5:      11286      10161    IO-APIC-edge  soundblaster | 
 |     8:          1          0    IO-APIC-edge  rtc | 
 |     9:      27422      27407    IO-APIC-edge  3c503 | 
 |    12:     113645     113873    IO-APIC-edge  PS/2 Mouse | 
 |    13:          0          0          XT-PIC  fpu | 
 |    14:      22491      24012    IO-APIC-edge  ide0 | 
 |    15:       2183       2415    IO-APIC-edge  ide1 | 
 |    17:      30564      30414   IO-APIC-level  eth0 | 
 |    18:        177        164   IO-APIC-level  bttv | 
 |   NMI:    2457961    2457959  | 
 |   LOC:    2457882    2457881  | 
 |   ERR:       2155 | 
 |  | 
 | NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI | 
 | (Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups. | 
 |  | 
 | LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU. | 
 |  | 
 | ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that | 
 | connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected, | 
 | the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big | 
 | problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ. | 
 |  | 
 | In 2.6.2* /proc/interrupts was expanded again.  This time the goal was for | 
 | /proc/interrupts to display every IRQ vector in use by the system, not | 
 | just those considered 'most important'.  The new vectors are: | 
 |  | 
 |   THR -- interrupt raised when a machine check threshold counter | 
 |   (typically counting ECC corrected errors of memory or cache) exceeds | 
 |   a configurable threshold.  Only available on some systems. | 
 |  | 
 |   TRM -- a thermal event interrupt occurs when a temperature threshold | 
 |   has been exceeded for the CPU.  This interrupt may also be generated | 
 |   when the temperature drops back to normal. | 
 |  | 
 |   SPU -- a spurious interrupt is some interrupt that was raised then lowered | 
 |   by some IO device before it could be fully processed by the APIC.  Hence | 
 |   the APIC sees the interrupt but does not know what device it came from. | 
 |   For this case the APIC will generate the interrupt with a IRQ vector | 
 |   of 0xff. This might also be generated by chipset bugs. | 
 |  | 
 |   RES, CAL, TLB -- rescheduling, call and TLB flush interrupts are | 
 |   sent from one CPU to another per the needs of the OS.  Typically, | 
 |   their statistics are used by kernel developers and interested users to | 
 |   determine the occurance of interrupt of the given type. | 
 |  | 
 | The above IRQ vectors are displayed only when relevent.  For example, | 
 | the threshold vector does not exist on x86_64 platforms.  Others are | 
 | suppressed when the system is a uniprocessor.  As of this writing, only | 
 | i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays. | 
 |  | 
 | Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4. | 
 | It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an | 
 | IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the | 
 | irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and one file; prof_cpu_mask | 
 |  | 
 | For example  | 
 |   > ls /proc/irq/ | 
 |   0  10  12  14  16  18  2  4  6  8  prof_cpu_mask | 
 |   1  11  13  15  17  19  3  5  7  9 | 
 |   > ls /proc/irq/0/ | 
 |   smp_affinity | 
 |  | 
 | The contents of the prof_cpu_mask file and each smp_affinity file for each IRQ | 
 | is the same by default: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity  | 
 |   ffffffff | 
 |  | 
 | It's a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the IRQ, you can | 
 | set it by doing: | 
 |  | 
 |   > echo 1 > /proc/irq/prof_cpu_mask | 
 |  | 
 | This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo 5 | 
 | which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ. | 
 |  | 
 | The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin | 
 | between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has | 
 | more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the | 
 | best choice for almost everyone. | 
 |  | 
 | There are  three  more  important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys. | 
 | The general  rule  is  that  the  contents,  or  even  the  existence of these | 
 | directories, depend  on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the | 
 | directory scsi  may  not  exist. The same is true with the net, which is there | 
 | only when networking support is present in the running kernel. | 
 |  | 
 | The slabinfo  file  gives  information  about  memory usage at the slab level. | 
 | Linux uses  slab  pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2. | 
 | Commonly used  objects  have  their  own  slab  pool (such as network buffers, | 
 | directory cache, and so on). | 
 |  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | > cat /proc/buddyinfo | 
 |  | 
 | Node 0, zone      DMA      0      4      5      4      4      3 ... | 
 | Node 0, zone   Normal      1      0      0      1    101      8 ... | 
 | Node 0, zone  HighMem      2      0      0      1      1      0 ... | 
 |  | 
 | Memory fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a  | 
 | useful tool for helping diagnose these problems.  Buddyinfo will give you a  | 
 | clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous | 
 | allocation failed. | 
 |  | 
 | Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are  | 
 | available.  In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in  | 
 | ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE  | 
 | available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc...  | 
 |  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | meminfo: | 
 |  | 
 | Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory.  This | 
 | varies by architecture and compile options.  The following is from a | 
 | 16GB PIII, which has highmem enabled.  You may not have all of these fields. | 
 |  | 
 | > cat /proc/meminfo | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | MemTotal:     16344972 kB | 
 | MemFree:      13634064 kB | 
 | Buffers:          3656 kB | 
 | Cached:        1195708 kB | 
 | SwapCached:          0 kB | 
 | Active:         891636 kB | 
 | Inactive:      1077224 kB | 
 | HighTotal:    15597528 kB | 
 | HighFree:     13629632 kB | 
 | LowTotal:       747444 kB | 
 | LowFree:          4432 kB | 
 | SwapTotal:           0 kB | 
 | SwapFree:            0 kB | 
 | Dirty:             968 kB | 
 | Writeback:           0 kB | 
 | AnonPages:      861800 kB | 
 | Mapped:         280372 kB | 
 | Slab:           284364 kB | 
 | SReclaimable:   159856 kB | 
 | SUnreclaim:     124508 kB | 
 | PageTables:      24448 kB | 
 | NFS_Unstable:        0 kB | 
 | Bounce:              0 kB | 
 | WritebackTmp:        0 kB | 
 | CommitLimit:   7669796 kB | 
 | Committed_AS:   100056 kB | 
 | VmallocTotal:   112216 kB | 
 | VmallocUsed:       428 kB | 
 | VmallocChunk:   111088 kB | 
 |  | 
 |     MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved | 
 |               bits and the kernel binary code) | 
 |      MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree | 
 |      Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks | 
 |               shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so) | 
 |       Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the | 
 |               pagecache).  Doesn't include SwapCached | 
 |   SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but | 
 |               still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it | 
 |               doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already | 
 |               in the swapfile. This saves I/O) | 
 |       Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not | 
 |               reclaimed unless absolutely necessary. | 
 |     Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used.  It is more | 
 |               eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes | 
 |    HighTotal: | 
 |     HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory | 
 |               Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or | 
 |               for the pagecache.  The kernel must use tricks to access | 
 |               this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem. | 
 |     LowTotal: | 
 |      LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that | 
 |               highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the | 
 |               kernel's use for its own data structures.  Among many | 
 |               other things, it is where everything from the Slab is | 
 |               allocated.  Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem. | 
 |    SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available | 
 |     SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily | 
 |               on the disk | 
 |        Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk | 
 |    Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk | 
 |    AnonPages: Non-file backed pages mapped into userspace page tables | 
 |       Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries | 
 |         Slab: in-kernel data structures cache | 
 | SReclaimable: Part of Slab, that might be reclaimed, such as caches | 
 |   SUnreclaim: Part of Slab, that cannot be reclaimed on memory pressure | 
 |   PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page | 
 |               tables. | 
 | NFS_Unstable: NFS pages sent to the server, but not yet committed to stable | 
 | 	      storage | 
 |       Bounce: Memory used for block device "bounce buffers" | 
 | WritebackTmp: Memory used by FUSE for temporary writeback buffers | 
 |  CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'), | 
 |               this is the total amount of  memory currently available to | 
 |               be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to | 
 |               if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in | 
 |               'vm.overcommit_memory'). | 
 |               The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula: | 
 |               CommitLimit = ('vm.overcommit_ratio' * Physical RAM) + Swap | 
 |               For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G | 
 |               of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would | 
 |               yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G. | 
 |               For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation | 
 |               in vm/overcommit-accounting. | 
 | Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system. | 
 |               The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which | 
 |               has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been | 
 |               "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G | 
 |               of memory, but only touches 300M of it will only show up | 
 |               as using 300M of memory even if it has the address space | 
 |               allocated for the entire 1G. This 1G is memory which has | 
 |               been "committed" to by the VM and can be used at any time | 
 |               by the allocating application. With strict overcommit | 
 |               enabled on the system (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'), | 
 |               allocations which would exceed the CommitLimit (detailed | 
 |               above) will not be permitted. This is useful if one needs | 
 |               to guarantee that processes will not fail due to lack of | 
 |               memory once that memory has been successfully allocated. | 
 | VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area | 
 |  VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used | 
 | VmallocChunk: largest contigious block of vmalloc area which is free | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide | 
 | ---------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which | 
 | the kernel  is  aware.  There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the | 
 | file drivers  and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory | 
 | in the controller specific subtree. | 
 |  | 
 | The file  drivers  contains general information about the drivers used for the | 
 | IDE devices: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/ide/drivers | 
 |   ide-cdrom version 4.53 | 
 |   ide-disk version 1.08 | 
 |  | 
 | More detailed  information  can  be  found  in  the  controller  specific | 
 | subdirectories. These  are  named  ide0,  ide1  and  so  on.  Each  of  these | 
 | directories contains the files shown in table 1-5. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-5: IDE controller info in  /proc/ide/ide? | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File    Content                                  | 
 |  channel IDE channel (0 or 1)                     | 
 |  config  Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)  | 
 |  mate    Mate name                                | 
 |  model   Type/Chipset of IDE controller           | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | Each device  connected  to  a  controller  has  a separate subdirectory in the | 
 | controllers directory.  The  files  listed in table 1-6 are contained in these | 
 | directories. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-6: IDE device information | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File             Content                                     | 
 |  cache            The cache                                   | 
 |  capacity         Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)  | 
 |  driver           driver and version                          | 
 |  geometry         physical and logical geometry               | 
 |  identify         device identify block                       | 
 |  media            media type                                  | 
 |  model            device identifier                           | 
 |  settings         device setup                                | 
 |  smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds              | 
 |  smart_values     IDE disk management values                  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | The most  interesting  file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of | 
 | the drive parameters: | 
 |  | 
 |   # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings  | 
 |   name                    value           min             max             mode  | 
 |   ----                    -----           ---             ---             ----  | 
 |   bios_cyl                526             0               65535           rw  | 
 |   bios_head               255             0               255             rw  | 
 |   bios_sect               63              0               63              rw  | 
 |   breada_readahead        4               0               127             rw  | 
 |   bswap                   0               0               1               r  | 
 |   file_readahead          72              0               2097151         rw  | 
 |   io_32bit                0               0               3               rw  | 
 |   keepsettings            0               0               1               rw  | 
 |   max_kb_per_request      122             1               127             rw  | 
 |   multcount               0               0               8               rw  | 
 |   nice1                   1               0               1               rw  | 
 |   nowerr                  0               0               1               rw  | 
 |   pio_mode                write-only      0               255             w  | 
 |   slow                    0               0               1               rw  | 
 |   unmaskirq               0               0               1               rw  | 
 |   using_dma               0               0               1               rw  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net | 
 | -------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The subdirectory  /proc/net  follows  the  usual  pattern. Table 1-6 shows the | 
 | additional values  you  get  for  IP  version 6 if you configure the kernel to | 
 | support this. Table 1-7 lists the files and their meaning. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-6: IPv6 info in /proc/net  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File       Content                                                | 
 |  udp6       UDP sockets (IPv6)                                     | 
 |  tcp6       TCP sockets (IPv6)                                     | 
 |  raw6       Raw device statistics (IPv6)                           | 
 |  igmp6      IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)  | 
 |  if_inet6   List of IPv6 interface addresses                       | 
 |  ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6                          | 
 |  rt6_stats  Global IPv6 routing tables statistics                  | 
 |  sockstat6  Socket statistics (IPv6)                               | 
 |  snmp6      Snmp data (IPv6)                                       | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-7: Network info in /proc/net  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File          Content                                                          | 
 |  arp           Kernel  ARP table                                                | 
 |  dev           network devices with statistics                                  | 
 |  dev_mcast     the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too | 
 |                (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound | 
 |                addresses).  | 
 |  dev_stat      network device status                                            | 
 |  ip_fwchains   Firewall chain linkage                                           | 
 |  ip_fwnames    Firewall chain names                                             | 
 |  ip_masq       Directory containing the masquerading tables                     | 
 |  ip_masquerade Major masquerading table                                         | 
 |  netstat       Network statistics                                               | 
 |  raw           raw device statistics                                            | 
 |  route         Kernel routing table                                             | 
 |  rpc           Directory containing rpc info                                    | 
 |  rt_cache      Routing cache                                                    | 
 |  snmp          SNMP data                                                        | 
 |  sockstat      Socket statistics                                                | 
 |  tcp           TCP  sockets                                                     | 
 |  tr_rif        Token ring RIF routing table                                     | 
 |  udp           UDP sockets                                                      | 
 |  unix          UNIX domain sockets                                              | 
 |  wireless      Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)                            | 
 |  igmp          IP multicast addresses, which this host joined                   | 
 |  psched        Global packet scheduler parameters.                              | 
 |  netlink       List of PF_NETLINK sockets                                       | 
 |  ip_mr_vifs    List of multicast virtual interfaces                             | 
 |  ip_mr_cache   List of multicast routing cache                                  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | You can  use  this  information  to see which network devices are available in | 
 | your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/net/dev  | 
 |   Inter-|Receive                                                   |[...  | 
 |    face |bytes    packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[...  | 
 |       lo:  908188   5596     0    0    0     0          0         0 [...          | 
 |     ppp0:15475140  20721   410    0    0   410          0         0 [...   | 
 |     eth0:  614530   7085     0    0    0     0          0         1 [...  | 
 |     | 
 |   ...] Transmit  | 
 |   ...] bytes    packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed  | 
 |   ...]  908188     5596    0    0    0     0       0          0  | 
 |   ...] 1375103    17405    0    0    0     0       0          0  | 
 |   ...] 1703981     5535    0    0    0     3       0          0  | 
 |  | 
 | In addition, each Channel Bond interface has it's own directory.  For | 
 | example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/. | 
 | It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the | 
 | current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how | 
 | many times the slaves link has failed. | 
 |  | 
 | 1.5 SCSI info | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | If you  have  a  SCSI  host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory | 
 | named after  the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list | 
 | of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi: | 
 |  | 
 |   >cat /proc/scsi/scsi  | 
 |   Attached devices:  | 
 |   Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00  | 
 |     Vendor: IBM      Model: DGHS09U          Rev: 03E0  | 
 |     Type:   Direct-Access                    ANSI SCSI revision: 03  | 
 |   Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00  | 
 |     Vendor: PIONEER  Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S   Rev: 1.04  | 
 |     Type:   CD-ROM                           ANSI SCSI revision: 02  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | The directory  named  after  the driver has one file for each adapter found in | 
 | the system.  These  files  contain information about the controller, including | 
 | the used  IRQ  and  the  IO  address range. The amount of information shown is | 
 | dependent on  the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec | 
 | AHA-2940 SCSI adapter: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0  | 
 |     | 
 |   Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4  | 
 |   Compile Options:  | 
 |     TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled  | 
 |     AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS     : Disabled  | 
 |     AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY    : 5  | 
 |   Adapter Configuration:  | 
 |              SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter  | 
 |                              Ultra Wide Controller  | 
 |       PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000  | 
 |    Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.  | 
 |         Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled  | 
 |                       IRQ: 10  | 
 |                      SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,  | 
 |                            Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255  | 
 |                Interrupts: 160328  | 
 |         BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6  | 
 |      Adapter Control Word: 0x005b  | 
 |      Extended Translation: Enabled  | 
 |   Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff  | 
 |        Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001  | 
 |    Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000  | 
 |   Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000  | 
 |   Default Tag Queue Depth: 8  | 
 |       Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:  | 
 |         {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}  | 
 |       Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:  | 
 |         {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}  | 
 |   Statistics:  | 
 |   (scsi0:0:0:0)  | 
 |     Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8  | 
 |     Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)  | 
 |     Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)  | 
 |   (scsi0:0:6:0)  | 
 |     Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15  | 
 |     Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)  | 
 |     Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport | 
 | --------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The directory  /proc/parport  contains information about the parallel ports of | 
 | your system.  It  has  one  subdirectory  for  each port, named after the port | 
 | number (0,1,2,...). | 
 |  | 
 | These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-8. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-8: Files in /proc/parport  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File      Content                                                              | 
 |  autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired.          | 
 |  devices   list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the | 
 |            name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear | 
 |            against any).  | 
 |  hardware  Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.              | 
 |  irq       IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate | 
 |            file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ | 
 |            number or none).  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty | 
 | ------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Information about  the  available  and actually used tty's can be found in the | 
 | directory /proc/tty.You'll  find  entries  for drivers and line disciplines in | 
 | this directory, as shown in Table 1-9. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 1-9: Files in /proc/tty  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File          Content                                         | 
 |  drivers       list of drivers and their usage                 | 
 |  ldiscs        registered line disciplines                     | 
 |  driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | To see  which  tty's  are  currently in use, you can simply look into the file | 
 | /proc/tty/drivers: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/tty/drivers  | 
 |   pty_slave            /dev/pts      136   0-255 pty:slave  | 
 |   pty_master           /dev/ptm      128   0-255 pty:master  | 
 |   pty_slave            /dev/ttyp       3   0-255 pty:slave  | 
 |   pty_master           /dev/pty        2   0-255 pty:master  | 
 |   serial               /dev/cua        5   64-67 serial:callout  | 
 |   serial               /dev/ttyS       4   64-67 serial  | 
 |   /dev/tty0            /dev/tty0       4       0 system:vtmaster  | 
 |   /dev/ptmx            /dev/ptmx       5       2 system  | 
 |   /dev/console         /dev/console    5       1 system:console  | 
 |   /dev/tty             /dev/tty        5       0 system:/dev/tty  | 
 |   unknown              /dev/tty        4    1-63 console  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat | 
 | ------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Various pieces   of  information about  kernel activity  are  available in the | 
 | /proc/stat file.  All  of  the numbers reported  in  this file are  aggregates | 
 | since the system first booted.  For a quick look, simply cat the file: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/stat | 
 |   cpu  2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 0 | 
 |   cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 0 | 
 |   cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 0 | 
 |   intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...] | 
 |   ctxt 1990473 | 
 |   btime 1062191376 | 
 |   processes 2915 | 
 |   procs_running 1 | 
 |   procs_blocked 0 | 
 |  | 
 | The very first  "cpu" line aggregates the  numbers in all  of the other "cpuN" | 
 | lines.  These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing | 
 | different kinds of work.  Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a | 
 | second).  The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right: | 
 |  | 
 | - user: normal processes executing in user mode | 
 | - nice: niced processes executing in user mode | 
 | - system: processes executing in kernel mode | 
 | - idle: twiddling thumbs | 
 | - iowait: waiting for I/O to complete | 
 | - irq: servicing interrupts | 
 | - softirq: servicing softirqs | 
 | - steal: involuntary wait | 
 |  | 
 | The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts  serviced since boot time, for each | 
 | of the  possible system interrupts.   The first  column  is the  total of  all | 
 | interrupts serviced; each  subsequent column is the  total for that particular | 
 | interrupt. | 
 |  | 
 | The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs. | 
 |  | 
 | The "btime" line gives  the time at which the  system booted, in seconds since | 
 | the Unix epoch. | 
 |  | 
 | The "processes" line gives the number  of processes and threads created, which | 
 | includes (but  is not limited  to) those  created by  calls to the  fork() and | 
 | clone() system calls. | 
 |  | 
 | The  "procs_running" line gives the  number of processes  currently running on | 
 | CPUs. | 
 |  | 
 | The   "procs_blocked" line gives  the  number of  processes currently blocked, | 
 | waiting for I/O to complete. | 
 |  | 
 | 1.9 Ext4 file system parameters | 
 | ------------------------------ | 
 | Ext4 file system have one directory per partition under /proc/fs/ext4/ | 
 | # ls /proc/fs/ext4/hdc/ | 
 | group_prealloc  max_to_scan  mb_groups  mb_history  min_to_scan  order2_req | 
 | stats  stream_req | 
 |  | 
 | mb_groups: | 
 | This file gives the details of mutiblock allocator buddy cache of free blocks | 
 |  | 
 | mb_history: | 
 | Multiblock allocation history. | 
 |  | 
 | stats: | 
 | This file indicate whether the multiblock allocator should start collecting | 
 | statistics. The statistics are shown during unmount | 
 |  | 
 | group_prealloc: | 
 | The multiblock allocator normalize the block allocation request to | 
 | group_prealloc filesystem blocks if we don't have strip value set. | 
 | The stripe value can be specified at mount time or during mke2fs. | 
 |  | 
 | max_to_scan: | 
 | How long multiblock allocator can look for a best extent (in found extents) | 
 |  | 
 | min_to_scan: | 
 | How long multiblock allocator  must look for a best extent | 
 |  | 
 | order2_req: | 
 | Multiblock allocator use  2^N search using buddies only for requests greater | 
 | than or equal to order2_req. The request size is specfied in file system | 
 | blocks. A value of 2 indicate only if the requests are greater than or equal | 
 | to 4 blocks. | 
 |  | 
 | stream_req: | 
 | Files smaller than stream_req are served by the stream allocator, whose | 
 | purpose is to pack requests as close each to other as possible to | 
 | produce smooth I/O traffic. Avalue of 16 indicate that file smaller than 16 | 
 | filesystem block size will use group based preallocation. | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | Summary | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only | 
 | allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status | 
 | by reading files in the hierarchy. | 
 |  | 
 | The directory  structure  of /proc reflects the types of information and makes | 
 | it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data. | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | In This Chapter | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | * Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys | 
 | * Exploring the files which modify certain parameters | 
 | * Review of the /proc/sys file tree | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | A very  interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only | 
 | a source  of  information,  it also allows you to change parameters within the | 
 | kernel. Be  very  careful  when attempting this. You can optimize your system, | 
 | but you  can  also  cause  it  to  crash.  Never  alter kernel parameters on a | 
 | production system.  Set  up  a  development machine and test to make sure that | 
 | everything works  the  way  you want it to. You may have no alternative but to | 
 | reboot the machine once an error has been made. | 
 |  | 
 | To change  a  value,  simply  echo  the new value into the file. An example is | 
 | given below  in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do | 
 | this. You  can  create  your  own  boot script to perform this every time your | 
 | system boots. | 
 |  | 
 | The files  in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and | 
 | general things  in  the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files | 
 | can inadvertently  disrupt  your  system,  it  is  advisable  to  read  both | 
 | documentation and  source  before actually making adjustments. In any case, be | 
 | very careful  when  writing  to  any  of these files. The entries in /proc may | 
 | change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt | 
 | review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation. | 
 | This chapter  is  heavily  based  on the documentation included in the pre 2.2 | 
 | kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.1 /proc/sys/fs - File system data | 
 | ----------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This subdirectory  contains  specific  file system, file handle, inode, dentry | 
 | and quota information. | 
 |  | 
 | Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/fs: | 
 |  | 
 | dentry-state | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Status of  the  directory  cache.  Since  directory  entries  are  dynamically | 
 | allocated and  deallocated,  this  file indicates the current status. It holds | 
 | six values, in which the last two are not used and are always zero. The others | 
 | are listed in table 2-1. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 2-1: Status files of the directory cache  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  File       Content                                                             | 
 |  nr_dentry  Almost always zero                                                  | 
 |  nr_unused  Number of unused cache entries                                      | 
 |  age_limit   | 
 |             in seconds after the entry may be reclaimed, when memory is short  | 
 |  want_pages internally                                                          | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | dquot-nr and dquot-max | 
 | ---------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The file dquot-max shows the maximum number of cached disk quota entries. | 
 |  | 
 | The file  dquot-nr  shows  the  number of allocated disk quota entries and the | 
 | number of free disk quota entries. | 
 |  | 
 | If the number of available cached disk quotas is very low and you have a large | 
 | number of simultaneous system users, you might want to raise the limit. | 
 |  | 
 | file-nr and file-max | 
 | -------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The kernel  allocates file handles dynamically, but doesn't free them again at | 
 | this time. | 
 |  | 
 | The value  in  file-max  denotes  the  maximum number of file handles that the | 
 | Linux kernel will allocate. When you get a lot of error messages about running | 
 | out of  file handles, you might want to raise this limit. The default value is | 
 | 10% of  RAM in kilobytes.  To  change it, just  write the new number  into the | 
 | file: | 
 |  | 
 |   # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max  | 
 |   4096  | 
 |   # echo 8192 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max  | 
 |   # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max  | 
 |   8192  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | This method  of  revision  is  useful  for  all customizable parameters of the | 
 | kernel - simply echo the new value to the corresponding file. | 
 |  | 
 | Historically, the three values in file-nr denoted the number of allocated file | 
 | handles,  the number of  allocated but  unused file  handles, and  the maximum | 
 | number of file handles. Linux 2.6 always  reports 0 as the number of free file | 
 | handles -- this  is not an error,  it just means that the  number of allocated | 
 | file handles exactly matches the number of used file handles. | 
 |  | 
 | Attempts to  allocate more  file descriptors than  file-max are  reported with | 
 | printk, look for "VFS: file-max limit <number> reached". | 
 |  | 
 | inode-state and inode-nr | 
 | ------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | The file inode-nr contains the first two items from inode-state, so we'll skip | 
 | to that file... | 
 |  | 
 | inode-state contains  two  actual numbers and five dummy values. The numbers | 
 | are nr_inodes and nr_free_inodes (in order of appearance). | 
 |  | 
 | nr_inodes | 
 | ~~~~~~~~~ | 
 |  | 
 | Denotes the  number  of  inodes the system has allocated. This number will | 
 | grow and shrink dynamically. | 
 |  | 
 | nr_open | 
 | ------- | 
 |  | 
 | Denotes the maximum number of file-handles a process can | 
 | allocate. Default value is 1024*1024 (1048576) which should be | 
 | enough for most machines. Actual limit depends on RLIMIT_NOFILE | 
 | resource limit. | 
 |  | 
 | nr_free_inodes | 
 | -------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Represents the  number of free inodes. Ie. The number of inuse inodes is | 
 | (nr_inodes - nr_free_inodes). | 
 |  | 
 | aio-nr and aio-max-nr | 
 | --------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | aio-nr is the running total of the number of events specified on the | 
 | io_setup system call for all currently active aio contexts.  If aio-nr | 
 | reaches aio-max-nr then io_setup will fail with EAGAIN.  Note that | 
 | raising aio-max-nr does not result in the pre-allocation or re-sizing | 
 | of any kernel data structures. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats | 
 | ----------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Besides these  files, there is the subdirectory /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. This | 
 | handles the kernel support for miscellaneous binary formats. | 
 |  | 
 | Binfmt_misc provides  the ability to register additional binary formats to the | 
 | Kernel without  compiling  an additional module/kernel. Therefore, binfmt_misc | 
 | needs to  know magic numbers at the beginning or the filename extension of the | 
 | binary. | 
 |  | 
 | It works by maintaining a linked list of structs that contain a description of | 
 | a binary  format,  including  a  magic  with size (or the filename extension), | 
 | offset and  mask,  and  the  interpreter name. On request it invokes the given | 
 | interpreter with  the  original  program  as  argument,  as  binfmt_java  and | 
 | binfmt_em86 and  binfmt_mz  do.  Since binfmt_misc does not define any default | 
 | binary-formats, you have to register an additional binary-format. | 
 |  | 
 | There are two general files in binfmt_misc and one file per registered format. | 
 | The two general files are register and status. | 
 |  | 
 | Registering a new binary format | 
 | ------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | To register a new binary format you have to issue the command | 
 |  | 
 |   echo :name:type:offset:magic:mask:interpreter: > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | with appropriate  name (the name for the /proc-dir entry), offset (defaults to | 
 | 0, if  omitted),  magic, mask (which can be omitted, defaults to all 0xff) and | 
 | last but  not  least,  the  interpreter that is to be invoked (for example and | 
 | testing /bin/echo).  Type  can be M for usual magic matching or E for filename | 
 | extension matching (give extension in place of magic). | 
 |  | 
 | Check or reset the status of the binary format handler | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | If you  do a cat on the file /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status, you will get the | 
 | current status (enabled/disabled) of binfmt_misc. Change the status by echoing | 
 | 0 (disables)  or  1  (enables)  or  -1  (caution:  this  clears all previously | 
 | registered binary  formats)  to status. For example echo 0 > status to disable | 
 | binfmt_misc (temporarily). | 
 |  | 
 | Status of a single handler | 
 | -------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Each registered  handler has an entry in /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. These files | 
 | perform the  same function as status, but their scope is limited to the actual | 
 | binary format.  By  cating this file, you also receive all related information | 
 | about the interpreter/magic of the binfmt. | 
 |  | 
 | Example usage of binfmt_misc (emulate binfmt_java) | 
 | -------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 |   cd /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc   | 
 |   echo ':Java:M::\xca\xfe\xba\xbe::/usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper:' > register   | 
 |   echo ':HTML:E::html::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register   | 
 |   echo ':Applet:M::<!--applet::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register  | 
 |   echo ':DEXE:M::\x0eDEX::/usr/bin/dosexec:' > register  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | These four  lines  add  support  for  Java  executables and Java applets (like | 
 | binfmt_java, additionally  recognizing the .html extension with no need to put | 
 | <!--applet> to  every  applet  file).  You  have  to  install  the JDK and the | 
 | shell-script /usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper  too.  It  works  around  the | 
 | brokenness of  the Java filename handling. To add a Java binary, just create a | 
 | link to the class-file somewhere in the path. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.3 /proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters | 
 | ------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | This directory  reflects  general  kernel  behaviors. As I've said before, the | 
 | contents depend  on  your  configuration.  Here you'll find the most important | 
 | files, along with descriptions of what they mean and how to use them. | 
 |  | 
 | acct | 
 | ---- | 
 |  | 
 | The file contains three values; highwater, lowwater, and frequency. | 
 |  | 
 | It exists  only  when  BSD-style  process  accounting is enabled. These values | 
 | control its behavior. If the free space on the file system where the log lives | 
 | goes below  lowwater  percentage,  accounting  suspends.  If  it  goes  above | 
 | highwater percentage,  accounting  resumes. Frequency determines how often you | 
 | check the amount of free space (value is in seconds). Default settings are: 4, | 
 | 2, and  30.  That is, suspend accounting if there is less than 2 percent free; | 
 | resume it  if we have a value of 3 or more percent; consider information about | 
 | the amount of free space valid for 30 seconds | 
 |  | 
 | ctrl-alt-del | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | When the value in this file is 0, ctrl-alt-del is trapped and sent to the init | 
 | program to  handle a graceful restart. However, when the value is greater that | 
 | zero, Linux's  reaction  to  this key combination will be an immediate reboot, | 
 | without syncing its dirty buffers. | 
 |  | 
 | [NOTE] | 
 |     When a  program  (like  dosemu)  has  the  keyboard  in  raw  mode,  the | 
 |     ctrl-alt-del is  intercepted  by  the  program  before it ever reaches the | 
 |     kernel tty  layer,  and  it is up to the program to decide what to do with | 
 |     it. | 
 |  | 
 | domainname and hostname | 
 | ----------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | These files  can  be controlled to set the NIS domainname and hostname of your | 
 | box. For the classic darkstar.frop.org a simple: | 
 |  | 
 |   # echo "darkstar" > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname  | 
 |   # echo "frop.org" > /proc/sys/kernel/domainname  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | would suffice to set your hostname and NIS domainname. | 
 |  | 
 | osrelease, ostype and version | 
 | ----------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The names make it pretty obvious what these fields contain: | 
 |  | 
 |   > cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease  | 
 |   2.2.12  | 
 |     | 
 |   > cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype  | 
 |   Linux  | 
 |     | 
 |   > cat /proc/sys/kernel/version  | 
 |   #4 Fri Oct 1 12:41:14 PDT 1999  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | The files  osrelease and ostype should be clear enough. Version needs a little | 
 | more clarification.  The  #4 means that this is the 4th kernel built from this | 
 | source base and the date after it indicates the time the kernel was built. The | 
 | only way to tune these values is to rebuild the kernel. | 
 |  | 
 | panic | 
 | ----- | 
 |  | 
 | The value  in  this  file  represents  the  number of seconds the kernel waits | 
 | before rebooting  on  a  panic.  When  you  use  the  software  watchdog,  the | 
 | recommended setting  is  60. If set to 0, the auto reboot after a kernel panic | 
 | is disabled, which is the default setting. | 
 |  | 
 | printk | 
 | ------ | 
 |  | 
 | The four values in printk denote | 
 | * console_loglevel, | 
 | * default_message_loglevel, | 
 | * minimum_console_loglevel and | 
 | * default_console_loglevel | 
 | respectively. | 
 |  | 
 | These values  influence  printk()  behavior  when  printing  or  logging error | 
 | messages, which  come  from  inside  the  kernel.  See  syslog(2)  for  more | 
 | information on the different log levels. | 
 |  | 
 | console_loglevel | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Messages with a higher priority than this will be printed to the console. | 
 |  | 
 | default_message_level | 
 | --------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Messages without an explicit priority will be printed with this priority. | 
 |  | 
 | minimum_console_loglevel | 
 | ------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Minimum (highest) value to which the console_loglevel can be set. | 
 |  | 
 | default_console_loglevel | 
 | ------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Default value for console_loglevel. | 
 |  | 
 | sg-big-buff | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | This file  shows  the size of the generic SCSI (sg) buffer. At this point, you | 
 | can't tune  it  yet,  but  you  can  change  it  at  compile  time  by editing | 
 | include/scsi/sg.h and changing the value of SG_BIG_BUFF. | 
 |  | 
 | If you use a scanner with SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) you might want to set | 
 | this to a higher value. Refer to the SANE documentation on this issue. | 
 |  | 
 | modprobe | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | The location  where  the  modprobe  binary  is  located.  The kernel uses this | 
 | program to load modules on demand. | 
 |  | 
 | unknown_nmi_panic | 
 | ----------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The value in this file affects behavior of handling NMI. When the value is | 
 | non-zero, unknown NMI is trapped and then panic occurs. At that time, kernel | 
 | debugging information is displayed on console. | 
 |  | 
 | NMI switch that most IA32 servers have fires unknown NMI up, for example. | 
 | If a system hangs up, try pressing the NMI switch. | 
 |  | 
 | nmi_watchdog | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Enables/Disables the NMI watchdog on x86 systems.  When the value is non-zero | 
 | the NMI watchdog is enabled and will continuously test all online cpus to | 
 | determine whether or not they are still functioning properly. | 
 |  | 
 | Because the NMI watchdog shares registers with oprofile, by disabling the NMI | 
 | watchdog, oprofile may have more registers to utilize. | 
 |  | 
 | maps_protect | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Enables/Disables the protection of the per-process proc entries "maps" and | 
 | "smaps".  When enabled, the contents of these files are visible only to | 
 | readers that are allowed to ptrace() the given process. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 2.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem | 
 | ----------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The files  in  this directory can be used to tune the operation of the virtual | 
 | memory (VM)  subsystem  of  the  Linux  kernel. | 
 |  | 
 | vfs_cache_pressure | 
 | ------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for | 
 | caching of directory and inode objects. | 
 |  | 
 | At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to | 
 | reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and | 
 | swapcache reclaim.  Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer | 
 | to retain dentry and inode caches.  Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100 | 
 | causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes. | 
 |  | 
 | dirty_background_ratio | 
 | ---------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which | 
 | the pdflush background writeback daemon will start writing out dirty data. | 
 |  | 
 | dirty_ratio | 
 | ----------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which | 
 | a process which is generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty | 
 | data. | 
 |  | 
 | dirty_writeback_centisecs | 
 | ------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The pdflush writeback daemons will periodically wake up and write `old' data | 
 | out to disk.  This tunable expresses the interval between those wakeups, in | 
 | 100'ths of a second. | 
 |  | 
 | Setting this to zero disables periodic writeback altogether. | 
 |  | 
 | dirty_expire_centisecs | 
 | ---------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This tunable is used to define when dirty data is old enough to be eligible | 
 | for writeout by the pdflush daemons.  It is expressed in 100'ths of a second.  | 
 | Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this interval will be | 
 | written out next time a pdflush daemon wakes up. | 
 |  | 
 | highmem_is_dirtyable | 
 | -------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Only present if CONFIG_HIGHMEM is set. | 
 |  | 
 | This defaults to 0 (false), meaning that the ratios set above are calculated | 
 | as a percentage of lowmem only.  This protects against excessive scanning | 
 | in page reclaim, swapping and general VM distress. | 
 |  | 
 | Setting this to 1 can be useful on 32 bit machines where you want to make | 
 | random changes within an MMAPed file that is larger than your available | 
 | lowmem without causing large quantities of random IO.  Is is safe if the | 
 | behavior of all programs running on the machine is known and memory will | 
 | not be otherwise stressed. | 
 |  | 
 | legacy_va_layout | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | If non-zero, this sysctl disables the new 32-bit mmap mmap layout - the kernel | 
 | will use the legacy (2.4) layout for all processes. | 
 |  | 
 | lowmem_reserve_ratio | 
 | --------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | For some specialised workloads on highmem machines it is dangerous for | 
 | the kernel to allow process memory to be allocated from the "lowmem" | 
 | zone.  This is because that memory could then be pinned via the mlock() | 
 | system call, or by unavailability of swapspace. | 
 |  | 
 | And on large highmem machines this lack of reclaimable lowmem memory | 
 | can be fatal. | 
 |  | 
 | So the Linux page allocator has a mechanism which prevents allocations | 
 | which _could_ use highmem from using too much lowmem.  This means that | 
 | a certain amount of lowmem is defended from the possibility of being | 
 | captured into pinned user memory. | 
 |  | 
 | (The same argument applies to the old 16 megabyte ISA DMA region.  This | 
 | mechanism will also defend that region from allocations which could use | 
 | highmem or lowmem). | 
 |  | 
 | The `lowmem_reserve_ratio' tunable determines how aggressive the kernel is | 
 | in defending these lower zones. | 
 |  | 
 | If you have a machine which uses highmem or ISA DMA and your | 
 | applications are using mlock(), or if you are running with no swap then | 
 | you probably should change the lowmem_reserve_ratio setting. | 
 |  | 
 | The lowmem_reserve_ratio is an array. You can see them by reading this file. | 
 | - | 
 | % cat /proc/sys/vm/lowmem_reserve_ratio | 
 | 256     256     32 | 
 | - | 
 | Note: # of this elements is one fewer than number of zones. Because the highest | 
 |       zone's value is not necessary for following calculation. | 
 |  | 
 | But, these values are not used directly. The kernel calculates # of protection | 
 | pages for each zones from them. These are shown as array of protection pages | 
 | in /proc/zoneinfo like followings. (This is an example of x86-64 box). | 
 | Each zone has an array of protection pages like this. | 
 |  | 
 | - | 
 | Node 0, zone      DMA | 
 |   pages free     1355 | 
 |         min      3 | 
 |         low      3 | 
 |         high     4 | 
 | 	: | 
 | 	: | 
 |     numa_other   0 | 
 |         protection: (0, 2004, 2004, 2004) | 
 | 	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | 
 |   pagesets | 
 |     cpu: 0 pcp: 0 | 
 |         : | 
 | - | 
 | These protections are added to score to judge whether this zone should be used | 
 | for page allocation or should be reclaimed. | 
 |  | 
 | In this example, if normal pages (index=2) are required to this DMA zone and | 
 | pages_high is used for watermark, the kernel judges this zone should not be | 
 | used because pages_free(1355) is smaller than watermark + protection[2] | 
 | (4 + 2004 = 2008). If this protection value is 0, this zone would be used for | 
 | normal page requirement. If requirement is DMA zone(index=0), protection[0] | 
 | (=0) is used. | 
 |  | 
 | zone[i]'s protection[j] is calculated by following exprssion. | 
 |  | 
 | (i < j): | 
 |   zone[i]->protection[j] | 
 |   = (total sums of present_pages from zone[i+1] to zone[j] on the node) | 
 |     / lowmem_reserve_ratio[i]; | 
 | (i = j): | 
 |    (should not be protected. = 0; | 
 | (i > j): | 
 |    (not necessary, but looks 0) | 
 |  | 
 | The default values of lowmem_reserve_ratio[i] are | 
 |     256 (if zone[i] means DMA or DMA32 zone) | 
 |     32  (others). | 
 | As above expression, they are reciprocal number of ratio. | 
 | 256 means 1/256. # of protection pages becomes about "0.39%" of total present | 
 | pages of higher zones on the node. | 
 |  | 
 | If you would like to protect more pages, smaller values are effective. | 
 | The minimum value is 1 (1/1 -> 100%). | 
 |  | 
 | page-cluster | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | page-cluster controls the number of pages which are written to swap in | 
 | a single attempt.  The swap I/O size. | 
 |  | 
 | It is a logarithmic value - setting it to zero means "1 page", setting | 
 | it to 1 means "2 pages", setting it to 2 means "4 pages", etc. | 
 |  | 
 | The default value is three (eight pages at a time).  There may be some | 
 | small benefits in tuning this to a different value if your workload is | 
 | swap-intensive. | 
 |  | 
 | overcommit_memory | 
 | ----------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Controls overcommit of system memory, possibly allowing processes | 
 | to allocate (but not use) more memory than is actually available. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 0	-	Heuristic overcommit handling. Obvious overcommits of | 
 | 		address space are refused. Used for a typical system. It | 
 | 		ensures a seriously wild allocation fails while allowing | 
 | 		overcommit to reduce swap usage.  root is allowed to | 
 | 		allocate slightly more memory in this mode. This is the | 
 | 		default. | 
 |  | 
 | 1	-	Always overcommit. Appropriate for some scientific | 
 | 		applications. | 
 |  | 
 | 2	-	Don't overcommit. The total address space commit | 
 | 		for the system is not permitted to exceed swap plus a | 
 | 		configurable percentage (default is 50) of physical RAM. | 
 | 		Depending on the percentage you use, in most situations | 
 | 		this means a process will not be killed while attempting | 
 | 		to use already-allocated memory but will receive errors | 
 | 		on memory allocation as	appropriate. | 
 |  | 
 | overcommit_ratio | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Percentage of physical memory size to include in overcommit calculations | 
 | (see above.) | 
 |  | 
 | Memory allocation limit = swapspace + physmem * (overcommit_ratio / 100) | 
 |  | 
 | 	swapspace = total size of all swap areas | 
 | 	physmem = size of physical memory in system | 
 |  | 
 | nr_hugepages and hugetlb_shm_group | 
 | ---------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | nr_hugepages configures number of hugetlb page reserved for the system. | 
 |  | 
 | hugetlb_shm_group contains group id that is allowed to create SysV shared | 
 | memory segment using hugetlb page. | 
 |  | 
 | hugepages_treat_as_movable | 
 | -------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This parameter is only useful when kernelcore= is specified at boot time to | 
 | create ZONE_MOVABLE for pages that may be reclaimed or migrated. Huge pages | 
 | are not movable so are not normally allocated from ZONE_MOVABLE. A non-zero | 
 | value written to hugepages_treat_as_movable allows huge pages to be allocated | 
 | from ZONE_MOVABLE. | 
 |  | 
 | Once enabled, the ZONE_MOVABLE is treated as an area of memory the huge | 
 | pages pool can easily grow or shrink within. Assuming that applications are | 
 | not running that mlock() a lot of memory, it is likely the huge pages pool | 
 | can grow to the size of ZONE_MOVABLE by repeatedly entering the desired value | 
 | into nr_hugepages and triggering page reclaim. | 
 |  | 
 | laptop_mode | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | laptop_mode is a knob that controls "laptop mode". All the things that are | 
 | controlled by this knob are discussed in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt. | 
 |  | 
 | block_dump | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | block_dump enables block I/O debugging when set to a nonzero value. More | 
 | information on block I/O debugging is in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt. | 
 |  | 
 | swap_token_timeout | 
 | ------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | This file contains valid hold time of swap out protection token. The Linux | 
 | VM has token based thrashing control mechanism and uses the token to prevent | 
 | unnecessary page faults in thrashing situation. The unit of the value is | 
 | second. The value would be useful to tune thrashing behavior. | 
 |  | 
 | drop_caches | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and | 
 | inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free. | 
 |  | 
 | To free pagecache: | 
 | 	echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches | 
 | To free dentries and inodes: | 
 | 	echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches | 
 | To free pagecache, dentries and inodes: | 
 | 	echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches | 
 |  | 
 | As this is a non-destructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, the | 
 | user should run `sync' first. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | 2.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters | 
 | ---------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Currently there is only support for CDROM drives, and for those, there is only | 
 | one read-only  file containing information about the CD-ROM drives attached to | 
 | the system: | 
 |  | 
 |   >cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info  | 
 |   CD-ROM information, Id: cdrom.c 2.55 1999/04/25  | 
 |     | 
 |   drive name:             sr0     hdb  | 
 |   drive speed:            32      40  | 
 |   drive # of slots:       1       0  | 
 |   Can close tray:         1       1  | 
 |   Can open tray:          1       1  | 
 |   Can lock tray:          1       1  | 
 |   Can change speed:       1       1  | 
 |   Can select disk:        0       1  | 
 |   Can read multisession:  1       1  | 
 |   Can read MCN:           1       1  | 
 |   Reports media changed:  1       1  | 
 |   Can play audio:         1       1  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | You see two drives, sr0 and hdb, along with a list of their features. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls | 
 | --------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This directory  contains four files, which enable or disable debugging for the | 
 | RPC functions NFS, NFS-daemon, RPC and NLM. The default values are 0. They can | 
 | be set to one to turn debugging on. (The default value is 0 for each) | 
 |  | 
 | 2.7 /proc/sys/net - Networking stuff | 
 | ------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | The interface  to  the  networking  parts  of  the  kernel  is  located  in | 
 | /proc/sys/net. Table  2-3  shows all possible subdirectories. You may see only | 
 | some of them, depending on your kernel's configuration. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Table 2-3: Subdirectories in /proc/sys/net  | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  Directory Content             Directory  Content             | 
 |  core      General parameter   appletalk  Appletalk protocol  | 
 |  unix      Unix domain sockets netrom     NET/ROM             | 
 |  802       E802 protocol       ax25       AX25                | 
 |  ethernet  Ethernet protocol   rose       X.25 PLP layer      | 
 |  ipv4      IP version 4        x25        X.25 protocol       | 
 |  ipx       IPX                 token-ring IBM token ring      | 
 |  bridge    Bridging            decnet     DEC net             | 
 |  ipv6      IP version 6                    | 
 | .............................................................................. | 
 |  | 
 | We will  concentrate  on IP networking here. Since AX15, X.25, and DEC Net are | 
 | only minor players in the Linux world, we'll skip them in this chapter. You'll | 
 | find some  short  info on Appletalk and IPX further on in this chapter. Review | 
 | the online  documentation  and the kernel source to get a detailed view of the | 
 | parameters for  those  protocols.  In  this  section  we'll  discuss  the | 
 | subdirectories printed  in  bold letters in the table above. As default values | 
 | are suitable for most needs, there is no need to change these values. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/sys/net/core - Network core options | 
 | ----------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | rmem_default | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | The default setting of the socket receive buffer in bytes. | 
 |  | 
 | rmem_max | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | The maximum receive socket buffer size in bytes. | 
 |  | 
 | wmem_default | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | The default setting (in bytes) of the socket send buffer. | 
 |  | 
 | wmem_max | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | The maximum send socket buffer size in bytes. | 
 |  | 
 | message_burst and message_cost | 
 | ------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | These parameters  are used to limit the warning messages written to the kernel | 
 | log from  the  networking  code.  They  enforce  a  rate  limit  to  make  a | 
 | denial-of-service attack  impossible. A higher message_cost factor, results in | 
 | fewer messages that will be written. Message_burst controls when messages will | 
 | be dropped.  The  default  settings  limit  warning messages to one every five | 
 | seconds. | 
 |  | 
 | warnings | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | This controls console messages from the networking stack that can occur because | 
 | of problems on the network like duplicate address or bad checksums. Normally, | 
 | this should be enabled, but if the problem persists the messages can be | 
 | disabled. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | netdev_max_backlog | 
 | ------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum number  of  packets,  queued  on  the  INPUT  side, when the interface | 
 | receives packets faster than kernel can process them. | 
 |  | 
 | optmem_max | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum ancillary buffer size allowed per socket. Ancillary data is a sequence | 
 | of struct cmsghdr structures with appended data. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/sys/net/unix - Parameters for Unix domain sockets | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | There are  only  two  files  in this subdirectory. They control the delays for | 
 | deleting and destroying socket descriptors. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings | 
 | -------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | IP version  4  is  still the most used protocol in Unix networking. It will be | 
 | replaced by  IP version 6 in the next couple of years, but for the moment it's | 
 | the de  facto  standard  for  the  internet  and  is  used  in most networking | 
 | environments around  the  world.  Because  of the importance of this protocol, | 
 | we'll have a deeper look into the subtree controlling the behavior of the IPv4 | 
 | subsystem of the Linux kernel. | 
 |  | 
 | Let's start with the entries in /proc/sys/net/ipv4. | 
 |  | 
 | ICMP settings | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | icmp_echo_ignore_all and icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts | 
 | ---------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Turn on (1) or off (0), if the kernel should ignore all ICMP ECHO requests, or | 
 | just those to broadcast and multicast addresses. | 
 |  | 
 | Please note that if you accept ICMP echo requests with a broadcast/multi\-cast | 
 | destination address  your  network  may  be  used as an exploder for denial of | 
 | service packet flooding attacks to other hosts. | 
 |  | 
 | icmp_destunreach_rate, icmp_echoreply_rate, icmp_paramprob_rate and icmp_timeexeed_rate | 
 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Sets limits  for  sending  ICMP  packets  to specific targets. A value of zero | 
 | disables all  limiting.  Any  positive  value sets the maximum package rate in | 
 | hundredth of a second (on Intel systems). | 
 |  | 
 | IP settings | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | ip_autoconfig | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This file contains the number one if the host received its IP configuration by | 
 | RARP, BOOTP, DHCP or a similar mechanism. Otherwise it is zero. | 
 |  | 
 | ip_default_ttl | 
 | -------------- | 
 |  | 
 | TTL (Time  To  Live) for IPv4 interfaces. This is simply the maximum number of | 
 | hops a packet may travel. | 
 |  | 
 | ip_dynaddr | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Enable dynamic  socket  address rewriting on interface address change. This is | 
 | useful for dialup interface with changing IP addresses. | 
 |  | 
 | ip_forward | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Enable or  disable forwarding of IP packages between interfaces. Changing this | 
 | value resets  all other parameters to their default values. They differ if the | 
 | kernel is configured as host or router. | 
 |  | 
 | ip_local_port_range | 
 | ------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Range of  ports  used  by  TCP  and UDP to choose the local port. Contains two | 
 | numbers, the  first  number  is the lowest port, the second number the highest | 
 | local port.  Default  is  1024-4999.  Should  be  changed  to  32768-61000 for | 
 | high-usage systems. | 
 |  | 
 | ip_no_pmtu_disc | 
 | --------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Global switch  to  turn  path  MTU  discovery off. It can also be set on a per | 
 | socket basis by the applications or on a per route basis. | 
 |  | 
 | ip_masq_debug | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Enable/disable debugging of IP masquerading. | 
 |  | 
 | IP fragmentation settings | 
 | ------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | ipfrag_high_trash and ipfrag_low_trash | 
 | -------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum memory  used to reassemble IP fragments. When ipfrag_high_thresh bytes | 
 | of memory  is  allocated  for  this  purpose,  the  fragment handler will toss | 
 | packets until ipfrag_low_thresh is reached. | 
 |  | 
 | ipfrag_time | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | Time in seconds to keep an IP fragment in memory. | 
 |  | 
 | TCP settings | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_ecn | 
 | ------- | 
 |  | 
 | This file controls the use of the ECN bit in the IPv4 headers. This is a new | 
 | feature about Explicit Congestion Notification, but some routers and firewalls | 
 | block traffic that has this bit set, so it could be necessary to echo 0 to | 
 | /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn if you want to talk to these sites. For more info | 
 | you could read RFC2481. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_retrans_collapse | 
 | -------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Bug-to-bug compatibility with some broken printers. On retransmit, try to send | 
 | larger packets to work around bugs in certain TCP stacks. Can be turned off by | 
 | setting it to zero. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_keepalive_probes | 
 | -------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Number of  keep  alive  probes  TCP  sends  out,  until  it  decides  that the | 
 | connection is broken. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_keepalive_time | 
 | ------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | How often  TCP  sends out keep alive messages, when keep alive is enabled. The | 
 | default is 2 hours. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_syn_retries | 
 | --------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Number of  times  initial  SYNs  for  a  TCP  connection  attempt  will  be | 
 | retransmitted. Should  not  be  higher  than 255. This is only the timeout for | 
 | outgoing connections,  for  incoming  connections the number of retransmits is | 
 | defined by tcp_retries1. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_sack | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | Enable select acknowledgments after RFC2018. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_timestamps | 
 | -------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Enable timestamps as defined in RFC1323. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_stdurg | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Enable the  strict  RFC793 interpretation of the TCP urgent pointer field. The | 
 | default is  to  use  the  BSD  compatible interpretation of the urgent pointer | 
 | pointing to the first byte after the urgent data. The RFC793 interpretation is | 
 | to have  it  point  to  the last byte of urgent data. Enabling this option may | 
 | lead to interoperability problems. Disabled by default. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_syncookies | 
 | -------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Only valid  when  the  kernel  was  compiled  with CONFIG_SYNCOOKIES. Send out | 
 | syncookies when  the  syn backlog queue of a socket overflows. This is to ward | 
 | off the common 'syn flood attack'. Disabled by default. | 
 |  | 
 | Note that  the  concept  of a socket backlog is abandoned. This means the peer | 
 | may not  receive  reliable  error  messages  from  an  over loaded server with | 
 | syncookies enabled. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_window_scaling | 
 | ------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Enable window scaling as defined in RFC1323. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_fin_timeout | 
 | --------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The length  of  time  in  seconds  it  takes to receive a final FIN before the | 
 | socket is  always  closed.  This  is  strictly  a  violation  of  the  TCP | 
 | specification, but required to prevent denial-of-service attacks. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_max_ka_probes | 
 | ----------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Indicates how  many  keep alive probes are sent per slow timer run. Should not | 
 | be set too high to prevent bursts. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_max_syn_backlog | 
 | ------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Length of  the per socket backlog queue. Since Linux 2.2 the backlog specified | 
 | in listen(2)  only  specifies  the  length  of  the  backlog  queue of already | 
 | established sockets. When more connection requests arrive Linux starts to drop | 
 | packets. When  syncookies  are  enabled the packets are still answered and the | 
 | maximum queue is effectively ignored. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_retries1 | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Defines how  often  an  answer  to  a  TCP connection request is retransmitted | 
 | before giving up. | 
 |  | 
 | tcp_retries2 | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Defines how often a TCP packet is retransmitted before giving up. | 
 |  | 
 | Interface specific settings | 
 | --------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | In the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf you'll find one subdirectory for each | 
 | interface the  system  knows about and one directory calls all. Changes in the | 
 | all subdirectory  affect  all  interfaces,  whereas  changes  in  the  other | 
 | subdirectories affect  only  one  interface.  All  directories  have  the same | 
 | entries: | 
 |  | 
 | accept_redirects | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This switch  decides  if the kernel accepts ICMP redirect messages or not. The | 
 | default is 'yes' if the kernel is configured for a regular host and 'no' for a | 
 | router configuration. | 
 |  | 
 | accept_source_route | 
 | ------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Should source  routed  packages  be  accepted  or  declined.  The  default  is | 
 | dependent on  the  kernel  configuration.  It's 'yes' for routers and 'no' for | 
 | hosts. | 
 |  | 
 | bootp_relay | 
 | ~~~~~~~~~~~ | 
 |  | 
 | Accept packets  with source address 0.b.c.d with destinations not to this host | 
 | as local ones. It is supposed that a BOOTP relay daemon will catch and forward | 
 | such packets. | 
 |  | 
 | The default  is  0,  since this feature is not implemented yet (kernel version | 
 | 2.2.12). | 
 |  | 
 | forwarding | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Enable or disable IP forwarding on this interface. | 
 |  | 
 | log_martians | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Log packets with source addresses with no known route to kernel log. | 
 |  | 
 | mc_forwarding | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Do multicast routing. The kernel needs to be compiled with CONFIG_MROUTE and a | 
 | multicast routing daemon is required. | 
 |  | 
 | proxy_arp | 
 | --------- | 
 |  | 
 | Does (1) or does not (0) perform proxy ARP. | 
 |  | 
 | rp_filter | 
 | --------- | 
 |  | 
 | Integer value determines if a source validation should be made. 1 means yes, 0 | 
 | means no.  Disabled by default, but local/broadcast address spoofing is always | 
 | on. | 
 |  | 
 | If you  set this to 1 on a router that is the only connection for a network to | 
 | the net,  it  will  prevent  spoofing  attacks  against your internal networks | 
 | (external addresses  can  still  be  spoofed), without the need for additional | 
 | firewall rules. | 
 |  | 
 | secure_redirects | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Accept ICMP  redirect  messages  only  for gateways, listed in default gateway | 
 | list. Enabled by default. | 
 |  | 
 | shared_media | 
 | ------------ | 
 |  | 
 | If it  is  not  set  the kernel does not assume that different subnets on this | 
 | device can communicate directly. Default setting is 'yes'. | 
 |  | 
 | send_redirects | 
 | -------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Determines whether to send ICMP redirects to other hosts. | 
 |  | 
 | Routing settings | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The directory  /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route  contains  several  file  to  control | 
 | routing issues. | 
 |  | 
 | error_burst and error_cost | 
 | -------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | These  parameters  are used to limit how many ICMP destination unreachable to  | 
 | send  from  the  host  in question. ICMP destination unreachable messages are  | 
 | sent  when  we  cannot reach  the next hop while trying to transmit a packet.  | 
 | It  will also print some error messages to kernel logs if someone is ignoring  | 
 | our   ICMP  redirects.  The  higher  the  error_cost  factor  is,  the  fewer  | 
 | destination  unreachable  and error messages will be let through. Error_burst  | 
 | controls  when  destination  unreachable  messages and error messages will be | 
 | dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to five every second. | 
 |  | 
 | flush | 
 | ----- | 
 |  | 
 | Writing to this file results in a flush of the routing cache. | 
 |  | 
 | gc_elasticity, gc_interval, gc_min_interval_ms, gc_timeout, gc_thresh | 
 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Values to  control  the  frequency  and  behavior  of  the  garbage collection | 
 | algorithm for the routing cache. gc_min_interval is deprecated and replaced | 
 | by gc_min_interval_ms. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | max_size | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum size  of  the routing cache. Old entries will be purged once the cache | 
 | reached has this size. | 
 |  | 
 | redirect_load, redirect_number | 
 | ------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | Factors which  determine  if  more ICPM redirects should be sent to a specific | 
 | host. No  redirects  will be sent once the load limit or the maximum number of | 
 | redirects has been reached. | 
 |  | 
 | redirect_silence | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Timeout for redirects. After this period redirects will be sent again, even if | 
 | this has been stopped, because the load or number limit has been reached. | 
 |  | 
 | Network Neighbor handling | 
 | ------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Settings about how to handle connections with direct neighbors (nodes attached | 
 | to the same link) can be found in the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh. | 
 |  | 
 | As we  saw  it  in  the  conf directory, there is a default subdirectory which | 
 | holds the  default  values, and one directory for each interface. The contents | 
 | of the  directories  are identical, with the single exception that the default | 
 | settings contain additional options to set garbage collection parameters. | 
 |  | 
 | In the interface directories you'll find the following entries: | 
 |  | 
 | base_reachable_time, base_reachable_time_ms | 
 | ------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | A base  value  used for computing the random reachable time value as specified | 
 | in RFC2461. | 
 |  | 
 | Expression of base_reachable_time, which is deprecated, is in seconds. | 
 | Expression of base_reachable_time_ms is in milliseconds. | 
 |  | 
 | retrans_time, retrans_time_ms | 
 | ----------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The time between retransmitted Neighbor Solicitation messages. | 
 | Used for address resolution and to determine if a neighbor is | 
 | unreachable. | 
 |  | 
 | Expression of retrans_time, which is deprecated, is in 1/100 seconds (for | 
 | IPv4) or in jiffies (for IPv6). | 
 | Expression of retrans_time_ms is in milliseconds. | 
 |  | 
 | unres_qlen | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum queue  length  for a pending arp request - the number of packets which | 
 | are accepted from other layers while the ARP address is still resolved. | 
 |  | 
 | anycast_delay | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum for  random  delay  of  answers  to  neighbor solicitation messages in | 
 | jiffies (1/100  sec). Not yet implemented (Linux does not have anycast support | 
 | yet). | 
 |  | 
 | ucast_solicit | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum number of retries for unicast solicitation. | 
 |  | 
 | mcast_solicit | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum number of retries for multicast solicitation. | 
 |  | 
 | delay_first_probe_time | 
 | ---------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Delay for  the  first  time  probe  if  the  neighbor  is  reachable.  (see | 
 | gc_stale_time) | 
 |  | 
 | locktime | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | An ARP/neighbor  entry  is only replaced with a new one if the old is at least | 
 | locktime old. This prevents ARP cache thrashing. | 
 |  | 
 | proxy_delay | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum time  (real  time is random [0..proxytime]) before answering to an ARP | 
 | request for  which  we have an proxy ARP entry. In some cases, this is used to | 
 | prevent network flooding. | 
 |  | 
 | proxy_qlen | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Maximum queue length of the delayed proxy arp timer. (see proxy_delay). | 
 |  | 
 | app_solicit | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | Determines the  number of requests to send to the user level ARP daemon. Use 0 | 
 | to turn off. | 
 |  | 
 | gc_stale_time | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Determines how  often  to  check  for stale ARP entries. After an ARP entry is | 
 | stale it  will  be resolved again (which is useful when an IP address migrates | 
 | to another  machine).  When  ucast_solicit is greater than 0 it first tries to | 
 | send an  ARP  packet  directly  to  the  known  host  When  that  fails  and | 
 | mcast_solicit is greater than 0, an ARP request is broadcasted. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.9 Appletalk | 
 | ------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The /proc/sys/net/appletalk  directory  holds the Appletalk configuration data | 
 | when Appletalk is loaded. The configurable parameters are: | 
 |  | 
 | aarp-expiry-time | 
 | ---------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The amount  of  time  we keep an ARP entry before expiring it. Used to age out | 
 | old hosts. | 
 |  | 
 | aarp-resolve-time | 
 | ----------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The amount of time we will spend trying to resolve an Appletalk address. | 
 |  | 
 | aarp-retransmit-limit | 
 | --------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The number of times we will retransmit a query before giving up. | 
 |  | 
 | aarp-tick-time | 
 | -------------- | 
 |  | 
 | Controls the rate at which expires are checked. | 
 |  | 
 | The directory  /proc/net/appletalk  holds the list of active Appletalk sockets | 
 | on a machine. | 
 |  | 
 | The fields  indicate  the DDP type, the local address (in network:node format) | 
 | the remote  address,  the  size of the transmit pending queue, the size of the | 
 | received queue  (bytes waiting for applications to read) the state and the uid | 
 | owning the socket. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/net/atalk_iface lists  all  the  interfaces  configured for appletalk.It | 
 | shows the  name  of the interface, its Appletalk address, the network range on | 
 | that address  (or  network number for phase 1 networks), and the status of the | 
 | interface. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/net/atalk_route lists  each  known  network  route.  It lists the target | 
 | (network) that the route leads to, the router (may be directly connected), the | 
 | route flags, and the device the route is using. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.10 IPX | 
 | -------- | 
 |  | 
 | The IPX protocol has no tunable values in proc/sys/net. | 
 |  | 
 | The IPX  protocol  does,  however,  provide  proc/net/ipx. This lists each IPX | 
 | socket giving  the  local  and  remote  addresses  in  Novell  format (that is | 
 | network:node:port). In  accordance  with  the  strange  Novell  tradition, | 
 | everything but the port is in hex. Not_Connected is displayed for sockets that | 
 | are not  tied to a specific remote address. The Tx and Rx queue sizes indicate | 
 | the number  of  bytes  pending  for  transmission  and  reception.  The  state | 
 | indicates the  state  the  socket  is  in and the uid is the owning uid of the | 
 | socket. | 
 |  | 
 | The /proc/net/ipx_interface  file lists all IPX interfaces. For each interface | 
 | it gives  the network number, the node number, and indicates if the network is | 
 | the primary  network.  It  also  indicates  which  device  it  is bound to (or | 
 | Internal for  internal  networks)  and  the  Frame  Type if appropriate. Linux | 
 | supports 802.3,  802.2,  802.2  SNAP  and DIX (Blue Book) ethernet framing for | 
 | IPX. | 
 |  | 
 | The /proc/net/ipx_route  table  holds  a list of IPX routes. For each route it | 
 | gives the  destination  network, the router node (or Directly) and the network | 
 | address of the router (or Connected) for internal networks. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.11 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem | 
 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The "mqueue"  filesystem provides  the necessary kernel features to enable the | 
 | creation of a  user space  library that  implements  the  POSIX message queues | 
 | API (as noted by the  MSG tag in the  POSIX 1003.1-2001 version  of the System | 
 | Interfaces specification.) | 
 |  | 
 | The "mqueue" filesystem contains values for determining/setting  the amount of | 
 | resources used by the file system. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/queues_max is a read/write  file for  setting/getting  the | 
 | maximum number of message queues allowed on the system. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msg_max  is  a  read/write file  for  setting/getting  the | 
 | maximum number of messages in a queue value.  In fact it is the limiting value | 
 | for another (user) limit which is set in mq_open invocation. This attribute of | 
 | a queue must be less or equal then msg_max. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msgsize_max is  a read/write  file for setting/getting the | 
 | maximum  message size value (it is every  message queue's attribute set during | 
 | its creation). | 
 |  | 
 | 2.12 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | This file can be used to adjust the score used to select which processes | 
 | should be killed in an  out-of-memory  situation.  Giving it a high score will | 
 | increase the likelihood of this process being killed by the oom-killer.  Valid | 
 | values are in the range -16 to +15, plus the special value -17, which disables | 
 | oom-killing altogether for this process. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.13 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for | 
 | any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_adj to tune which | 
 | process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation. | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | Summary | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 | Certain aspects  of  kernel  behavior  can be modified at runtime, without the | 
 | need to  recompile  the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the | 
 | /proc/sys tree  can  not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo | 
 | command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings | 
 | of the kernel. | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | 2.14  /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This file contains IO statistics for each running process | 
 |  | 
 | Example | 
 | ------- | 
 |  | 
 | test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat & | 
 | [1] 3828 | 
 |  | 
 | test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io | 
 | rchar: 323934931 | 
 | wchar: 323929600 | 
 | syscr: 632687 | 
 | syscw: 632675 | 
 | read_bytes: 0 | 
 | write_bytes: 323932160 | 
 | cancelled_write_bytes: 0 | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Description | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | rchar | 
 | ----- | 
 |  | 
 | I/O counter: chars read | 
 | The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This | 
 | is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread(). | 
 | It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual | 
 | physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from | 
 | pagecache) | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | wchar | 
 | ----- | 
 |  | 
 | I/O counter: chars written | 
 | The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written | 
 | to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | syscr | 
 | ----- | 
 |  | 
 | I/O counter: read syscalls | 
 | Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read() | 
 | and pread(). | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | syscw | 
 | ----- | 
 |  | 
 | I/O counter: write syscalls | 
 | Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like | 
 | write() and pwrite(). | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | read_bytes | 
 | ---------- | 
 |  | 
 | I/O counter: bytes read | 
 | Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to | 
 | be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is | 
 | accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and | 
 | CIFS at a later time> | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | write_bytes | 
 | ----------- | 
 |  | 
 | I/O counter: bytes written | 
 | Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to | 
 | the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | cancelled_write_bytes | 
 | --------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and | 
 | then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have | 
 | been accounted as having caused 1MB of write. | 
 | In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen, | 
 | by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task | 
 | truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted | 
 | for (in it's write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that | 
 | from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing | 
 | that. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | Note | 
 | ---- | 
 |  | 
 | At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if | 
 | process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of | 
 | those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result. | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in | 
 | Documentation/accounting. | 
 |  | 
 | 2.15 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings | 
 | --------------------------------------------------------------- | 
 | When a process is dumped, all anonymous memory is written to a core file as | 
 | long as the size of the core file isn't limited. But sometimes we don't want | 
 | to dump some memory segments, for example, huge shared memory. Conversely, | 
 | sometimes we want to save file-backed memory segments into a core file, not | 
 | only the individual files. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter allows you to customize which memory segments | 
 | will be dumped when the <pid> process is dumped. coredump_filter is a bitmask | 
 | of memory types. If a bit of the bitmask is set, memory segments of the | 
 | corresponding memory type are dumped, otherwise they are not dumped. | 
 |  | 
 | The following 4 memory types are supported: | 
 |   - (bit 0) anonymous private memory | 
 |   - (bit 1) anonymous shared memory | 
 |   - (bit 2) file-backed private memory | 
 |   - (bit 3) file-backed shared memory | 
 |  | 
 |   Note that MMIO pages such as frame buffer are never dumped and vDSO pages | 
 |   are always dumped regardless of the bitmask status. | 
 |  | 
 | Default value of coredump_filter is 0x3; this means all anonymous memory | 
 | segments are dumped. | 
 |  | 
 | If you don't want to dump all shared memory segments attached to pid 1234, | 
 | write 1 to the process's proc file. | 
 |  | 
 |   $ echo 0x1 > /proc/1234/coredump_filter | 
 |  | 
 | When a new process is created, the process inherits the bitmask status from its | 
 | parent. It is useful to set up coredump_filter before the program runs. | 
 | For example: | 
 |  | 
 |   $ echo 0x7 > /proc/self/coredump_filter | 
 |   $ ./some_program | 
 |  | 
 | 2.16	/proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts | 
 | -------------------------------------------------------- | 
 |  | 
 | This file contains lines of the form: | 
 |  | 
 | 36 35 98:0 /mnt1 /mnt2 rw,noatime master:1 - ext3 /dev/root rw,errors=continue | 
 | (1)(2)(3)   (4)   (5)      (6)      (7)   (8) (9)   (10)         (11) | 
 |  | 
 | (1) mount ID:  unique identifier of the mount (may be reused after umount) | 
 | (2) parent ID:  ID of parent (or of self for the top of the mount tree) | 
 | (3) major:minor:  value of st_dev for files on filesystem | 
 | (4) root:  root of the mount within the filesystem | 
 | (5) mount point:  mount point relative to the process's root | 
 | (6) mount options:  per mount options | 
 | (7) optional fields:  zero or more fields of the form "tag[:value]" | 
 | (8) separator:  marks the end of the optional fields | 
 | (9) filesystem type:  name of filesystem of the form "type[.subtype]" | 
 | (10) mount source:  filesystem specific information or "none" | 
 | (11) super options:  per super block options | 
 |  | 
 | Parsers should ignore all unrecognised optional fields.  Currently the | 
 | possible optional fields are: | 
 |  | 
 | shared:X  mount is shared in peer group X | 
 | master:X  mount is slave to peer group X | 
 | propagate_from:X  mount is slave and receives propagation from peer group X (*) | 
 | unbindable  mount is unbindable | 
 |  | 
 | (*) X is the closest dominant peer group under the process's root.  If | 
 | X is the immediate master of the mount, or if there's no dominant peer | 
 | group under the same root, then only the "master:X" field is present | 
 | and not the "propagate_from:X" field. | 
 |  | 
 | For more information on mount propagation see: | 
 |  | 
 |   Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt | 
 |  | 
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |