Re: linux-kernel-digest V1 #2839

Andy Lo A Foe (arloafoe@cs.vu.nl)
Mon, 16 Nov 1998 11:27:36 +0100


pavel@inet.cz wrote:

> From: <peeter_joot@VNET.IBM.COM> (peeter joot)
> Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 12:55:32 -0500 (EST)
>
> Hi,
>
> > Attached below is a patch that allows /proc/<pid>/cmdline to be writable.
> > Some other operating systems have mechanisms that allow you to change the
> > name that shows up when you do a ps (AIX -- write into argv[0], HP -- via
> > pstat()). I didn't think that it would be too hard to allow the
> > same thing on linux via /proc/, and gave it a try.
>
> it is already possible (see sendmail's function setproctitle in src/conf.c):
>
> 277 ? S 0:00 sendmail: accepting connections on port 25

The sendmail solution (kludge? at least on Linux :) requires write access to /dev/kmem which only
root can do. It would be a lot cleaner if you could indeed modify the cmdline via the /proc
filesystem. I really like the idea, especially when programming with threads; ps should be more
useful if you could easily "rename" threads without root privileges. It sure beats seeing 20 ps
entries with the original command line..

> - --
> Pavel Janík ml.
> Pavel.Janik@inet.cz

Andy

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