Abstract
- For Linux, we can view the process info in the form of file under
/proc/PID
in human-readable text format - It allows us to view and modify parameters, automate with shell scripts
- We also feed these real-time system information to monitoring tools (like
htop
) without requiring special APIs
Key files
cmdline
: Contains the command line arguments used to start the processenviron
: Contains the environment variables for the processfd
: Directory containing symbolic links to files the process has openmaps
: Memory mapping information, useful for debugging memory issuesstatus
: General process status information (state, memory usage, etc.)limits
: Resource limits for the processio
: I/O statistics for the processThese files are useful for
- Performance monitoring and troubleshooting
- Resource usage of critical trading applications
- Debugging latency issues by examining process states
Fast speed
/proc
is memory-backed, so info retrieval is going to be very fast.