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1 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
2 | T H E /proc F I L E S Y S T E M | |
3 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
4 | /proc/sys Terrehon Bowden <terrehon@pacbell.net> October 7 1999 | |
5 | Bodo Bauer <bb@ricochet.net> | |
6 | ||
7 | 2.4.x update Jorge Nerin <comandante@zaralinux.com> November 14 2000 | |
8 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
9 | Version 1.3 Kernel version 2.2.12 | |
10 | Kernel version 2.4.0-test11-pre4 | |
11 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
12 | ||
13 | Table of Contents | |
14 | ----------------- | |
15 | ||
16 | 0 Preface | |
17 | 0.1 Introduction/Credits | |
18 | 0.2 Legal Stuff | |
19 | ||
20 | 1 Collecting System Information | |
21 | 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories | |
22 | 1.2 Kernel data | |
23 | 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide | |
24 | 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net | |
25 | 1.5 SCSI info | |
26 | 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport | |
27 | 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty | |
28 | 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat | |
29 | ||
30 | 2 Modifying System Parameters | |
31 | 2.1 /proc/sys/fs - File system data | |
32 | 2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats | |
33 | 2.3 /proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters | |
34 | 2.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem | |
35 | 2.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters | |
36 | 2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls | |
37 | 2.7 /proc/sys/net - Networking stuff | |
38 | 2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings | |
39 | 2.9 Appletalk | |
40 | 2.10 IPX | |
41 | 2.11 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem | |
d7ff0dbf JFM |
42 | 2.12 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score |
43 | 2.13 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score | |
f9c99463 | 44 | 2.14 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields |
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45 | |
46 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
47 | Preface | |
48 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
49 | ||
50 | 0.1 Introduction/Credits | |
51 | ------------------------ | |
52 | ||
53 | This documentation is part of a soon (or so we hope) to be released book on | |
54 | the SuSE Linux distribution. As there is no complete documentation for the | |
55 | /proc file system and we've used many freely available sources to write these | |
56 | chapters, it seems only fair to give the work back to the Linux community. | |
57 | This work is based on the 2.2.* kernel version and the upcoming 2.4.*. I'm | |
58 | afraid it's still far from complete, but we hope it will be useful. As far as | |
59 | we know, it is the first 'all-in-one' document about the /proc file system. It | |
60 | is focused on the Intel x86 hardware, so if you are looking for PPC, ARM, | |
61 | SPARC, AXP, etc., features, you probably won't find what you are looking for. | |
62 | It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols - sorry. But | |
63 | additions and patches are welcome and will be added to this document if you | |
64 | mail them to Bodo. | |
65 | ||
66 | We'd like to thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of | |
67 | other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a | |
68 | special thank you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily | |
69 | to create this document, as well as the additional information he provided. | |
70 | Thanks to everybody else who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel | |
71 | and helped create a great piece of software... :) | |
72 | ||
73 | If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to | |
74 | contact Bodo Bauer at bb@ricochet.net. We'll be happy to add them to this | |
75 | document. | |
76 | ||
77 | The latest version of this document is available online at | |
78 | http://skaro.nightcrawler.com/~bb/Docs/Proc as HTML version. | |
79 | ||
80 | If the above direction does not works for you, ypu could try the kernel | |
81 | mailing list at linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org and/or try to reach me at | |
82 | comandante@zaralinux.com. | |
83 | ||
84 | 0.2 Legal Stuff | |
85 | --------------- | |
86 | ||
87 | We don't guarantee the correctness of this document, and if you come to us | |
88 | complaining about how you screwed up your system because of incorrect | |
89 | documentation, we won't feel responsible... | |
90 | ||
91 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
92 | CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION | |
93 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
94 | ||
95 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
96 | In This Chapter | |
97 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
98 | * Investigating the properties of the pseudo file system /proc and its | |
99 | ability to provide information on the running Linux system | |
100 | * Examining /proc's structure | |
101 | * Uncovering various information about the kernel and the processes running | |
102 | on the system | |
103 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
104 | ||
105 | ||
106 | The proc file system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the | |
107 | kernel. It can be used to obtain information about the system and to change | |
108 | certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl). | |
109 | ||
110 | First, we'll take a look at the read-only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we | |
111 | show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings. | |
112 | ||
113 | 1.1 Process-Specific Subdirectories | |
114 | ----------------------------------- | |
115 | ||
116 | The directory /proc contains (among other things) one subdirectory for each | |
117 | process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID). | |
118 | ||
119 | The link self points to the process reading the file system. Each process | |
120 | subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1-1. | |
121 | ||
122 | ||
123 | Table 1-1: Process specific entries in /proc | |
124 | .............................................................................. | |
b813e931 DR |
125 | File Content |
126 | clear_refs Clears page referenced bits shown in smaps output | |
127 | cmdline Command line arguments | |
128 | cpu Current and last cpu in which it was executed (2.4)(smp) | |
129 | cwd Link to the current working directory | |
130 | environ Values of environment variables | |
131 | exe Link to the executable of this process | |
132 | fd Directory, which contains all file descriptors | |
133 | maps Memory maps to executables and library files (2.4) | |
134 | mem Memory held by this process | |
135 | root Link to the root directory of this process | |
136 | stat Process status | |
137 | statm Process memory status information | |
138 | status Process status in human readable form | |
139 | wchan If CONFIG_KALLSYMS is set, a pre-decoded wchan | |
140 | smaps Extension based on maps, the rss size for each mapped file | |
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141 | .............................................................................. |
142 | ||
143 | For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is | |
144 | read the file /proc/PID/status: | |
145 | ||
146 | >cat /proc/self/status | |
147 | Name: cat | |
148 | State: R (running) | |
149 | Pid: 5452 | |
150 | PPid: 743 | |
151 | TracerPid: 0 (2.4) | |
152 | Uid: 501 501 501 501 | |
153 | Gid: 100 100 100 100 | |
154 | Groups: 100 14 16 | |
155 | VmSize: 1112 kB | |
156 | VmLck: 0 kB | |
157 | VmRSS: 348 kB | |
158 | VmData: 24 kB | |
159 | VmStk: 12 kB | |
160 | VmExe: 8 kB | |
161 | VmLib: 1044 kB | |
162 | SigPnd: 0000000000000000 | |
163 | SigBlk: 0000000000000000 | |
164 | SigIgn: 0000000000000000 | |
165 | SigCgt: 0000000000000000 | |
166 | CapInh: 00000000fffffeff | |
167 | CapPrm: 0000000000000000 | |
168 | CapEff: 0000000000000000 | |
169 | ||
170 | ||
171 | This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with | |
172 | the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its | |
173 | information. The statm file contains more detailed information about the | |
174 | process memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1-2. | |
175 | ||
176 | ||
177 | Table 1-2: Contents of the statm files (as of 2.6.8-rc3) | |
178 | .............................................................................. | |
179 | Field Content | |
180 | size total program size (pages) (same as VmSize in status) | |
181 | resident size of memory portions (pages) (same as VmRSS in status) | |
182 | shared number of pages that are shared (i.e. backed by a file) | |
183 | trs number of pages that are 'code' (not including libs; broken, | |
184 | includes data segment) | |
185 | lrs number of pages of library (always 0 on 2.6) | |
186 | drs number of pages of data/stack (including libs; broken, | |
187 | includes library text) | |
188 | dt number of dirty pages (always 0 on 2.6) | |
189 | .............................................................................. | |
190 | ||
191 | 1.2 Kernel data | |
192 | --------------- | |
193 | ||
194 | Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about | |
195 | the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in | |
196 | /proc and are listed in Table 1-3. Not all of these will be present in your | |
197 | system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which | |
198 | files are there, and which are missing. | |
199 | ||
200 | Table 1-3: Kernel info in /proc | |
201 | .............................................................................. | |
202 | File Content | |
203 | apm Advanced power management info | |
204 | buddyinfo Kernel memory allocator information (see text) (2.5) | |
205 | bus Directory containing bus specific information | |
206 | cmdline Kernel command line | |
207 | cpuinfo Info about the CPU | |
208 | devices Available devices (block and character) | |
209 | dma Used DMS channels | |
210 | filesystems Supported filesystems | |
211 | driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4) | |
212 | execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4) | |
213 | fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4) | |
214 | fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4) | |
215 | ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem | |
216 | interrupts Interrupt usage | |
217 | iomem Memory map (2.4) | |
218 | ioports I/O port usage | |
219 | irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?) | |
220 | isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4) | |
221 | kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4)) | |
222 | kmsg Kernel messages | |
223 | ksyms Kernel symbol table | |
224 | loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes | |
225 | locks Kernel locks | |
226 | meminfo Memory info | |
227 | misc Miscellaneous | |
228 | modules List of loaded modules | |
229 | mounts Mounted filesystems | |
230 | net Networking info (see text) | |
231 | partitions Table of partitions known to the system | |
8b60756a | 232 | pci Deprecated info of PCI bus (new way -> /proc/bus/pci/, |
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233 | decoupled by lspci (2.4) |
234 | rtc Real time clock | |
235 | scsi SCSI info (see text) | |
236 | slabinfo Slab pool info | |
237 | stat Overall statistics | |
238 | swaps Swap space utilization | |
239 | sys See chapter 2 | |
240 | sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4) | |
241 | tty Info of tty drivers | |
242 | uptime System uptime | |
243 | version Kernel version | |
244 | video bttv info of video resources (2.4) | |
245 | .............................................................................. | |
246 | ||
247 | You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what | |
248 | they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts: | |
249 | ||
250 | > cat /proc/interrupts | |
251 | CPU0 | |
252 | 0: 8728810 XT-PIC timer | |
253 | 1: 895 XT-PIC keyboard | |
254 | 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade | |
255 | 3: 531695 XT-PIC aha152x | |
256 | 4: 2014133 XT-PIC serial | |
257 | 5: 44401 XT-PIC pcnet_cs | |
258 | 8: 2 XT-PIC rtc | |
259 | 11: 8 XT-PIC i82365 | |
260 | 12: 182918 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse | |
261 | 13: 1 XT-PIC fpu | |
262 | 14: 1232265 XT-PIC ide0 | |
263 | 15: 7 XT-PIC ide1 | |
264 | NMI: 0 | |
265 | ||
266 | In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the | |
267 | output of a SMP machine): | |
268 | ||
269 | > cat /proc/interrupts | |
270 | ||
271 | CPU0 CPU1 | |
272 | 0: 1243498 1214548 IO-APIC-edge timer | |
273 | 1: 8949 8958 IO-APIC-edge keyboard | |
274 | 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade | |
275 | 5: 11286 10161 IO-APIC-edge soundblaster | |
276 | 8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc | |
277 | 9: 27422 27407 IO-APIC-edge 3c503 | |
278 | 12: 113645 113873 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse | |
279 | 13: 0 0 XT-PIC fpu | |
280 | 14: 22491 24012 IO-APIC-edge ide0 | |
281 | 15: 2183 2415 IO-APIC-edge ide1 | |
282 | 17: 30564 30414 IO-APIC-level eth0 | |
283 | 18: 177 164 IO-APIC-level bttv | |
284 | NMI: 2457961 2457959 | |
285 | LOC: 2457882 2457881 | |
286 | ERR: 2155 | |
287 | ||
288 | NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI | |
289 | (Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lockups. | |
290 | ||
291 | LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU. | |
292 | ||
293 | ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO-APIC bus (the bus that | |
294 | connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected, | |
295 | the IO-APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big | |
296 | problem, but you should read the SMP-FAQ. | |
297 | ||
298 | In this context it could be interesting to note the new irq directory in 2.4. | |
299 | It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an | |
300 | IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the | |
301 | irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and one file; prof_cpu_mask | |
302 | ||
303 | For example | |
304 | > ls /proc/irq/ | |
305 | 0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask | |
306 | 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 | |
307 | > ls /proc/irq/0/ | |
308 | smp_affinity | |
309 | ||
310 | The contents of the prof_cpu_mask file and each smp_affinity file for each IRQ | |
311 | is the same by default: | |
312 | ||
313 | > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity | |
314 | ffffffff | |
315 | ||
c30fe7f7 | 316 | It's a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the IRQ, you can |
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317 | set it by doing: |
318 | ||
319 | > echo 1 > /proc/irq/prof_cpu_mask | |
320 | ||
321 | This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo 5 | |
c30fe7f7 | 322 | which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ. |
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323 | |
324 | The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin | |
325 | between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has | |
326 | more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the | |
327 | best choice for almost everyone. | |
328 | ||
329 | There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys. | |
330 | The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these | |
331 | directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the | |
332 | directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there | |
333 | only when networking support is present in the running kernel. | |
334 | ||
335 | The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level. | |
336 | Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2. | |
337 | Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers, | |
338 | directory cache, and so on). | |
339 | ||
340 | .............................................................................. | |
341 | ||
342 | > cat /proc/buddyinfo | |
343 | ||
344 | Node 0, zone DMA 0 4 5 4 4 3 ... | |
345 | Node 0, zone Normal 1 0 0 1 101 8 ... | |
346 | Node 0, zone HighMem 2 0 0 1 1 0 ... | |
347 | ||
348 | Memory fragmentation is a problem under some workloads, and buddyinfo is a | |
349 | useful tool for helping diagnose these problems. Buddyinfo will give you a | |
350 | clue as to how big an area you can safely allocate, or why a previous | |
351 | allocation failed. | |
352 | ||
353 | Each column represents the number of pages of a certain order which are | |
354 | available. In this case, there are 0 chunks of 2^0*PAGE_SIZE available in | |
355 | ZONE_DMA, 4 chunks of 2^1*PAGE_SIZE in ZONE_DMA, 101 chunks of 2^4*PAGE_SIZE | |
356 | available in ZONE_NORMAL, etc... | |
357 | ||
358 | .............................................................................. | |
359 | ||
360 | meminfo: | |
361 | ||
362 | Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory. This | |
363 | varies by architecture and compile options. The following is from a | |
364 | 16GB PIII, which has highmem enabled. You may not have all of these fields. | |
365 | ||
366 | > cat /proc/meminfo | |
367 | ||
368 | ||
369 | MemTotal: 16344972 kB | |
370 | MemFree: 13634064 kB | |
371 | Buffers: 3656 kB | |
372 | Cached: 1195708 kB | |
373 | SwapCached: 0 kB | |
374 | Active: 891636 kB | |
375 | Inactive: 1077224 kB | |
376 | HighTotal: 15597528 kB | |
377 | HighFree: 13629632 kB | |
378 | LowTotal: 747444 kB | |
379 | LowFree: 4432 kB | |
380 | SwapTotal: 0 kB | |
381 | SwapFree: 0 kB | |
382 | Dirty: 968 kB | |
383 | Writeback: 0 kB | |
384 | Mapped: 280372 kB | |
385 | Slab: 684068 kB | |
386 | CommitLimit: 7669796 kB | |
387 | Committed_AS: 100056 kB | |
388 | PageTables: 24448 kB | |
389 | VmallocTotal: 112216 kB | |
390 | VmallocUsed: 428 kB | |
391 | VmallocChunk: 111088 kB | |
392 | ||
393 | MemTotal: Total usable ram (i.e. physical ram minus a few reserved | |
394 | bits and the kernel binary code) | |
395 | MemFree: The sum of LowFree+HighFree | |
396 | Buffers: Relatively temporary storage for raw disk blocks | |
397 | shouldn't get tremendously large (20MB or so) | |
398 | Cached: in-memory cache for files read from the disk (the | |
399 | pagecache). Doesn't include SwapCached | |
400 | SwapCached: Memory that once was swapped out, is swapped back in but | |
401 | still also is in the swapfile (if memory is needed it | |
402 | doesn't need to be swapped out AGAIN because it is already | |
403 | in the swapfile. This saves I/O) | |
404 | Active: Memory that has been used more recently and usually not | |
405 | reclaimed unless absolutely necessary. | |
406 | Inactive: Memory which has been less recently used. It is more | |
407 | eligible to be reclaimed for other purposes | |
408 | HighTotal: | |
409 | HighFree: Highmem is all memory above ~860MB of physical memory | |
410 | Highmem areas are for use by userspace programs, or | |
411 | for the pagecache. The kernel must use tricks to access | |
412 | this memory, making it slower to access than lowmem. | |
413 | LowTotal: | |
414 | LowFree: Lowmem is memory which can be used for everything that | |
3f6dee9b | 415 | highmem can be used for, but it is also available for the |
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416 | kernel's use for its own data structures. Among many |
417 | other things, it is where everything from the Slab is | |
418 | allocated. Bad things happen when you're out of lowmem. | |
419 | SwapTotal: total amount of swap space available | |
420 | SwapFree: Memory which has been evicted from RAM, and is temporarily | |
421 | on the disk | |
422 | Dirty: Memory which is waiting to get written back to the disk | |
423 | Writeback: Memory which is actively being written back to the disk | |
424 | Mapped: files which have been mmaped, such as libraries | |
e82443c0 | 425 | Slab: in-kernel data structures cache |
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426 | CommitLimit: Based on the overcommit ratio ('vm.overcommit_ratio'), |
427 | this is the total amount of memory currently available to | |
428 | be allocated on the system. This limit is only adhered to | |
429 | if strict overcommit accounting is enabled (mode 2 in | |
430 | 'vm.overcommit_memory'). | |
431 | The CommitLimit is calculated with the following formula: | |
432 | CommitLimit = ('vm.overcommit_ratio' * Physical RAM) + Swap | |
433 | For example, on a system with 1G of physical RAM and 7G | |
434 | of swap with a `vm.overcommit_ratio` of 30 it would | |
435 | yield a CommitLimit of 7.3G. | |
436 | For more details, see the memory overcommit documentation | |
437 | in vm/overcommit-accounting. | |
438 | Committed_AS: The amount of memory presently allocated on the system. | |
439 | The committed memory is a sum of all of the memory which | |
440 | has been allocated by processes, even if it has not been | |
441 | "used" by them as of yet. A process which malloc()'s 1G | |
442 | of memory, but only touches 300M of it will only show up | |
443 | as using 300M of memory even if it has the address space | |
444 | allocated for the entire 1G. This 1G is memory which has | |
445 | been "committed" to by the VM and can be used at any time | |
446 | by the allocating application. With strict overcommit | |
447 | enabled on the system (mode 2 in 'vm.overcommit_memory'), | |
448 | allocations which would exceed the CommitLimit (detailed | |
449 | above) will not be permitted. This is useful if one needs | |
450 | to guarantee that processes will not fail due to lack of | |
451 | memory once that memory has been successfully allocated. | |
452 | PageTables: amount of memory dedicated to the lowest level of page | |
453 | tables. | |
454 | VmallocTotal: total size of vmalloc memory area | |
455 | VmallocUsed: amount of vmalloc area which is used | |
456 | VmallocChunk: largest contigious block of vmalloc area which is free | |
457 | ||
458 | ||
459 | 1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide | |
460 | ---------------------------- | |
461 | ||
462 | The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which | |
463 | the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the | |
464 | file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory | |
465 | in the controller specific subtree. | |
466 | ||
467 | The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the | |
468 | IDE devices: | |
469 | ||
470 | > cat /proc/ide/drivers | |
471 | ide-cdrom version 4.53 | |
472 | ide-disk version 1.08 | |
473 | ||
474 | More detailed information can be found in the controller specific | |
475 | subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these | |
476 | directories contains the files shown in table 1-4. | |
477 | ||
478 | ||
479 | Table 1-4: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide? | |
480 | .............................................................................. | |
481 | File Content | |
482 | channel IDE channel (0 or 1) | |
483 | config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge) | |
484 | mate Mate name | |
485 | model Type/Chipset of IDE controller | |
486 | .............................................................................. | |
487 | ||
488 | Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the | |
489 | controllers directory. The files listed in table 1-5 are contained in these | |
490 | directories. | |
491 | ||
492 | ||
493 | Table 1-5: IDE device information | |
494 | .............................................................................. | |
495 | File Content | |
496 | cache The cache | |
497 | capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks) | |
498 | driver driver and version | |
499 | geometry physical and logical geometry | |
500 | identify device identify block | |
501 | media media type | |
502 | model device identifier | |
503 | settings device setup | |
504 | smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds | |
505 | smart_values IDE disk management values | |
506 | .............................................................................. | |
507 | ||
508 | The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of | |
509 | the drive parameters: | |
510 | ||
511 | # cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings | |
512 | name value min max mode | |
513 | ---- ----- --- --- ---- | |
514 | bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw | |
515 | bios_head 255 0 255 rw | |
516 | bios_sect 63 0 63 rw | |
517 | breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw | |
518 | bswap 0 0 1 r | |
519 | file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw | |
520 | io_32bit 0 0 3 rw | |
521 | keepsettings 0 0 1 rw | |
522 | max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw | |
523 | multcount 0 0 8 rw | |
524 | nice1 1 0 1 rw | |
525 | nowerr 0 0 1 rw | |
526 | pio_mode write-only 0 255 w | |
527 | slow 0 0 1 rw | |
528 | unmaskirq 0 0 1 rw | |
529 | using_dma 0 0 1 rw | |
530 | ||
531 | ||
532 | 1.4 Networking info in /proc/net | |
533 | -------------------------------- | |
534 | ||
535 | The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1-6 shows the | |
536 | additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to | |
537 | support this. Table 1-7 lists the files and their meaning. | |
538 | ||
539 | ||
540 | Table 1-6: IPv6 info in /proc/net | |
541 | .............................................................................. | |
542 | File Content | |
543 | udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6) | |
544 | tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6) | |
545 | raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6) | |
546 | igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6) | |
547 | if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses | |
548 | ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6 | |
549 | rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics | |
550 | sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6) | |
551 | snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6) | |
552 | .............................................................................. | |
553 | ||
554 | ||
555 | Table 1-7: Network info in /proc/net | |
556 | .............................................................................. | |
557 | File Content | |
558 | arp Kernel ARP table | |
559 | dev network devices with statistics | |
560 | dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too | |
561 | (interface index, label, number of references, number of bound | |
562 | addresses). | |
563 | dev_stat network device status | |
564 | ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage | |
565 | ip_fwnames Firewall chain names | |
566 | ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables | |
567 | ip_masquerade Major masquerading table | |
568 | netstat Network statistics | |
569 | raw raw device statistics | |
570 | route Kernel routing table | |
571 | rpc Directory containing rpc info | |
572 | rt_cache Routing cache | |
573 | snmp SNMP data | |
574 | sockstat Socket statistics | |
575 | tcp TCP sockets | |
576 | tr_rif Token ring RIF routing table | |
577 | udp UDP sockets | |
578 | unix UNIX domain sockets | |
579 | wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc) | |
580 | igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined | |
581 | psched Global packet scheduler parameters. | |
582 | netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets | |
583 | ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces | |
584 | ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache | |
585 | .............................................................................. | |
586 | ||
587 | You can use this information to see which network devices are available in | |
588 | your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices: | |
589 | ||
590 | > cat /proc/net/dev | |
591 | Inter-|Receive |[... | |
592 | face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|[... | |
593 | lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [... | |
594 | ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [... | |
595 | eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [... | |
596 | ||
597 | ...] Transmit | |
598 | ...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed | |
599 | ...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 | |
600 | ...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0 | |
601 | ...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0 | |
602 | ||
603 | In addition, each Channel Bond interface has it's own directory. For | |
604 | example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/. | |
605 | It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the | |
606 | current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how | |
607 | many times the slaves link has failed. | |
608 | ||
609 | 1.5 SCSI info | |
610 | ------------- | |
611 | ||
612 | If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory | |
613 | named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list | |
614 | of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi: | |
615 | ||
616 | >cat /proc/scsi/scsi | |
617 | Attached devices: | |
618 | Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 | |
619 | Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0 | |
620 | Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03 | |
621 | Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00 | |
622 | Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U06S Rev: 1.04 | |
623 | Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02 | |
624 | ||
625 | ||
626 | The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in | |
627 | the system. These files contain information about the controller, including | |
628 | the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is | |
629 | dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec | |
630 | AHA-2940 SCSI adapter: | |
631 | ||
632 | > cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0 | |
633 | ||
634 | Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4 | |
635 | Compile Options: | |
636 | TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled | |
637 | AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled | |
638 | AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5 | |
639 | Adapter Configuration: | |
640 | SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter | |
641 | Ultra Wide Controller | |
642 | PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000 | |
643 | Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used. | |
644 | Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled | |
645 | IRQ: 10 | |
646 | SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2, | |
647 | Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255 | |
648 | Interrupts: 160328 | |
649 | BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6 | |
650 | Adapter Control Word: 0x005b | |
651 | Extended Translation: Enabled | |
652 | Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff | |
653 | Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001 | |
654 | Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000 | |
655 | Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000 | |
656 | Default Tag Queue Depth: 8 | |
657 | Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0: | |
658 | {255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255} | |
659 | Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0: | |
660 | {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1} | |
661 | Statistics: | |
662 | (scsi0:0:0:0) | |
663 | Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8 | |
664 | Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0) | |
665 | Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes) | |
666 | (scsi0:0:6:0) | |
667 | Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15 | |
668 | Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0) | |
669 | Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes) | |
670 | ||
671 | ||
672 | 1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport | |
673 | --------------------------------------- | |
674 | ||
675 | The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of | |
676 | your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port | |
677 | number (0,1,2,...). | |
678 | ||
679 | These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1-8. | |
680 | ||
681 | ||
682 | Table 1-8: Files in /proc/parport | |
683 | .............................................................................. | |
684 | File Content | |
685 | autoprobe Any IEEE-1284 device ID information that has been acquired. | |
686 | devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the | |
687 | name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear | |
688 | against any). | |
689 | hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel. | |
690 | irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate | |
691 | file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ | |
692 | number or none). | |
693 | .............................................................................. | |
694 | ||
695 | 1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty | |
696 | ------------------------- | |
697 | ||
698 | Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the | |
699 | directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in | |
700 | this directory, as shown in Table 1-9. | |
701 | ||
702 | ||
703 | Table 1-9: Files in /proc/tty | |
704 | .............................................................................. | |
705 | File Content | |
706 | drivers list of drivers and their usage | |
707 | ldiscs registered line disciplines | |
708 | driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines | |
709 | .............................................................................. | |
710 | ||
711 | To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file | |
712 | /proc/tty/drivers: | |
713 | ||
714 | > cat /proc/tty/drivers | |
715 | pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0-255 pty:slave | |
716 | pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0-255 pty:master | |
717 | pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0-255 pty:slave | |
718 | pty_master /dev/pty 2 0-255 pty:master | |
719 | serial /dev/cua 5 64-67 serial:callout | |
720 | serial /dev/ttyS 4 64-67 serial | |
721 | /dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster | |
722 | /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system | |
723 | /dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console | |
724 | /dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty | |
725 | unknown /dev/tty 4 1-63 console | |
726 | ||
727 | ||
728 | 1.8 Miscellaneous kernel statistics in /proc/stat | |
729 | ------------------------------------------------- | |
730 | ||
731 | Various pieces of information about kernel activity are available in the | |
732 | /proc/stat file. All of the numbers reported in this file are aggregates | |
733 | since the system first booted. For a quick look, simply cat the file: | |
734 | ||
735 | > cat /proc/stat | |
736 | cpu 2255 34 2290 22625563 6290 127 456 | |
737 | cpu0 1132 34 1441 11311718 3675 127 438 | |
738 | cpu1 1123 0 849 11313845 2614 0 18 | |
739 | intr 114930548 113199788 3 0 5 263 0 4 [... lots more numbers ...] | |
740 | ctxt 1990473 | |
741 | btime 1062191376 | |
742 | processes 2915 | |
743 | procs_running 1 | |
744 | procs_blocked 0 | |
745 | ||
746 | The very first "cpu" line aggregates the numbers in all of the other "cpuN" | |
747 | lines. These numbers identify the amount of time the CPU has spent performing | |
748 | different kinds of work. Time units are in USER_HZ (typically hundredths of a | |
749 | second). The meanings of the columns are as follows, from left to right: | |
750 | ||
751 | - user: normal processes executing in user mode | |
752 | - nice: niced processes executing in user mode | |
753 | - system: processes executing in kernel mode | |
754 | - idle: twiddling thumbs | |
755 | - iowait: waiting for I/O to complete | |
756 | - irq: servicing interrupts | |
757 | - softirq: servicing softirqs | |
758 | ||
759 | The "intr" line gives counts of interrupts serviced since boot time, for each | |
760 | of the possible system interrupts. The first column is the total of all | |
761 | interrupts serviced; each subsequent column is the total for that particular | |
762 | interrupt. | |
763 | ||
764 | The "ctxt" line gives the total number of context switches across all CPUs. | |
765 | ||
766 | The "btime" line gives the time at which the system booted, in seconds since | |
767 | the Unix epoch. | |
768 | ||
769 | The "processes" line gives the number of processes and threads created, which | |
770 | includes (but is not limited to) those created by calls to the fork() and | |
771 | clone() system calls. | |
772 | ||
773 | The "procs_running" line gives the number of processes currently running on | |
774 | CPUs. | |
775 | ||
776 | The "procs_blocked" line gives the number of processes currently blocked, | |
777 | waiting for I/O to complete. | |
778 | ||
779 | ||
780 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
781 | Summary | |
782 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
783 | The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only | |
784 | allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status | |
785 | by reading files in the hierarchy. | |
786 | ||
787 | The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes | |
788 | it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data. | |
789 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
790 | ||
791 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
792 | CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS | |
793 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
794 | ||
795 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
796 | In This Chapter | |
797 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
798 | * Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys | |
799 | * Exploring the files which modify certain parameters | |
800 | * Review of the /proc/sys file tree | |
801 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
802 | ||
803 | ||
804 | A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only | |
805 | a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the | |
806 | kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system, | |
807 | but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a | |
808 | production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that | |
809 | everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to | |
810 | reboot the machine once an error has been made. | |
811 | ||
812 | To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is | |
813 | given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do | |
814 | this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your | |
815 | system boots. | |
816 | ||
817 | The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and | |
818 | general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files | |
819 | can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both | |
820 | documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be | |
821 | very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may | |
822 | change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt | |
823 | review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation. | |
824 | This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2 | |
825 | kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel. | |
826 | ||
827 | 2.1 /proc/sys/fs - File system data | |
828 | ----------------------------------- | |
829 | ||
830 | This subdirectory contains specific file system, file handle, inode, dentry | |
831 | and quota information. | |
832 | ||
833 | Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/fs: | |
834 | ||
835 | dentry-state | |
836 | ------------ | |
837 | ||
838 | Status of the directory cache. Since directory entries are dynamically | |
839 | allocated and deallocated, this file indicates the current status. It holds | |
840 | six values, in which the last two are not used and are always zero. The others | |
841 | are listed in table 2-1. | |
842 | ||
843 | ||
844 | Table 2-1: Status files of the directory cache | |
845 | .............................................................................. | |
846 | File Content | |
847 | nr_dentry Almost always zero | |
848 | nr_unused Number of unused cache entries | |
849 | age_limit | |
850 | in seconds after the entry may be reclaimed, when memory is short | |
851 | want_pages internally | |
852 | .............................................................................. | |
853 | ||
854 | dquot-nr and dquot-max | |
855 | ---------------------- | |
856 | ||
857 | The file dquot-max shows the maximum number of cached disk quota entries. | |
858 | ||
859 | The file dquot-nr shows the number of allocated disk quota entries and the | |
860 | number of free disk quota entries. | |
861 | ||
862 | If the number of available cached disk quotas is very low and you have a large | |
863 | number of simultaneous system users, you might want to raise the limit. | |
864 | ||
865 | file-nr and file-max | |
866 | -------------------- | |
867 | ||
868 | The kernel allocates file handles dynamically, but doesn't free them again at | |
869 | this time. | |
870 | ||
871 | The value in file-max denotes the maximum number of file handles that the | |
872 | Linux kernel will allocate. When you get a lot of error messages about running | |
873 | out of file handles, you might want to raise this limit. The default value is | |
874 | 10% of RAM in kilobytes. To change it, just write the new number into the | |
875 | file: | |
876 | ||
877 | # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max | |
878 | 4096 | |
879 | # echo 8192 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max | |
880 | # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max | |
881 | 8192 | |
882 | ||
883 | ||
884 | This method of revision is useful for all customizable parameters of the | |
885 | kernel - simply echo the new value to the corresponding file. | |
886 | ||
887 | Historically, the three values in file-nr denoted the number of allocated file | |
888 | handles, the number of allocated but unused file handles, and the maximum | |
889 | number of file handles. Linux 2.6 always reports 0 as the number of free file | |
890 | handles -- this is not an error, it just means that the number of allocated | |
891 | file handles exactly matches the number of used file handles. | |
892 | ||
893 | Attempts to allocate more file descriptors than file-max are reported with | |
894 | printk, look for "VFS: file-max limit <number> reached". | |
895 | ||
896 | inode-state and inode-nr | |
897 | ------------------------ | |
898 | ||
899 | The file inode-nr contains the first two items from inode-state, so we'll skip | |
900 | to that file... | |
901 | ||
902 | inode-state contains two actual numbers and five dummy values. The numbers | |
903 | are nr_inodes and nr_free_inodes (in order of appearance). | |
904 | ||
905 | nr_inodes | |
906 | ~~~~~~~~~ | |
907 | ||
908 | Denotes the number of inodes the system has allocated. This number will | |
909 | grow and shrink dynamically. | |
910 | ||
911 | nr_free_inodes | |
912 | -------------- | |
913 | ||
914 | Represents the number of free inodes. Ie. The number of inuse inodes is | |
915 | (nr_inodes - nr_free_inodes). | |
916 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
917 | aio-nr and aio-max-nr |
918 | --------------------- | |
919 | ||
920 | aio-nr is the running total of the number of events specified on the | |
921 | io_setup system call for all currently active aio contexts. If aio-nr | |
922 | reaches aio-max-nr then io_setup will fail with EAGAIN. Note that | |
923 | raising aio-max-nr does not result in the pre-allocation or re-sizing | |
924 | of any kernel data structures. | |
925 | ||
926 | 2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc - Miscellaneous binary formats | |
927 | ----------------------------------------------------------- | |
928 | ||
929 | Besides these files, there is the subdirectory /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. This | |
930 | handles the kernel support for miscellaneous binary formats. | |
931 | ||
932 | Binfmt_misc provides the ability to register additional binary formats to the | |
933 | Kernel without compiling an additional module/kernel. Therefore, binfmt_misc | |
934 | needs to know magic numbers at the beginning or the filename extension of the | |
935 | binary. | |
936 | ||
937 | It works by maintaining a linked list of structs that contain a description of | |
938 | a binary format, including a magic with size (or the filename extension), | |
939 | offset and mask, and the interpreter name. On request it invokes the given | |
940 | interpreter with the original program as argument, as binfmt_java and | |
941 | binfmt_em86 and binfmt_mz do. Since binfmt_misc does not define any default | |
942 | binary-formats, you have to register an additional binary-format. | |
943 | ||
944 | There are two general files in binfmt_misc and one file per registered format. | |
945 | The two general files are register and status. | |
946 | ||
947 | Registering a new binary format | |
948 | ------------------------------- | |
949 | ||
950 | To register a new binary format you have to issue the command | |
951 | ||
952 | echo :name:type:offset:magic:mask:interpreter: > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register | |
953 | ||
954 | ||
955 | ||
956 | with appropriate name (the name for the /proc-dir entry), offset (defaults to | |
957 | 0, if omitted), magic, mask (which can be omitted, defaults to all 0xff) and | |
958 | last but not least, the interpreter that is to be invoked (for example and | |
959 | testing /bin/echo). Type can be M for usual magic matching or E for filename | |
960 | extension matching (give extension in place of magic). | |
961 | ||
962 | Check or reset the status of the binary format handler | |
963 | ------------------------------------------------------ | |
964 | ||
965 | If you do a cat on the file /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status, you will get the | |
966 | current status (enabled/disabled) of binfmt_misc. Change the status by echoing | |
967 | 0 (disables) or 1 (enables) or -1 (caution: this clears all previously | |
968 | registered binary formats) to status. For example echo 0 > status to disable | |
969 | binfmt_misc (temporarily). | |
970 | ||
971 | Status of a single handler | |
972 | -------------------------- | |
973 | ||
974 | Each registered handler has an entry in /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. These files | |
975 | perform the same function as status, but their scope is limited to the actual | |
976 | binary format. By cating this file, you also receive all related information | |
977 | about the interpreter/magic of the binfmt. | |
978 | ||
979 | Example usage of binfmt_misc (emulate binfmt_java) | |
980 | -------------------------------------------------- | |
981 | ||
982 | cd /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc | |
983 | echo ':Java:M::\xca\xfe\xba\xbe::/usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper:' > register | |
984 | echo ':HTML:E::html::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register | |
985 | echo ':Applet:M::<!--applet::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register | |
986 | echo ':DEXE:M::\x0eDEX::/usr/bin/dosexec:' > register | |
987 | ||
988 | ||
989 | These four lines add support for Java executables and Java applets (like | |
990 | binfmt_java, additionally recognizing the .html extension with no need to put | |
991 | <!--applet> to every applet file). You have to install the JDK and the | |
992 | shell-script /usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper too. It works around the | |
993 | brokenness of the Java filename handling. To add a Java binary, just create a | |
994 | link to the class-file somewhere in the path. | |
995 | ||
996 | 2.3 /proc/sys/kernel - general kernel parameters | |
997 | ------------------------------------------------ | |
998 | ||
999 | This directory reflects general kernel behaviors. As I've said before, the | |
1000 | contents depend on your configuration. Here you'll find the most important | |
1001 | files, along with descriptions of what they mean and how to use them. | |
1002 | ||
1003 | acct | |
1004 | ---- | |
1005 | ||
1006 | The file contains three values; highwater, lowwater, and frequency. | |
1007 | ||
1008 | It exists only when BSD-style process accounting is enabled. These values | |
1009 | control its behavior. If the free space on the file system where the log lives | |
1010 | goes below lowwater percentage, accounting suspends. If it goes above | |
1011 | highwater percentage, accounting resumes. Frequency determines how often you | |
1012 | check the amount of free space (value is in seconds). Default settings are: 4, | |
1013 | 2, and 30. That is, suspend accounting if there is less than 2 percent free; | |
1014 | resume it if we have a value of 3 or more percent; consider information about | |
1015 | the amount of free space valid for 30 seconds | |
1016 | ||
1017 | ctrl-alt-del | |
1018 | ------------ | |
1019 | ||
1020 | When the value in this file is 0, ctrl-alt-del is trapped and sent to the init | |
1021 | program to handle a graceful restart. However, when the value is greater that | |
1022 | zero, Linux's reaction to this key combination will be an immediate reboot, | |
1023 | without syncing its dirty buffers. | |
1024 | ||
1025 | [NOTE] | |
1026 | When a program (like dosemu) has the keyboard in raw mode, the | |
1027 | ctrl-alt-del is intercepted by the program before it ever reaches the | |
1028 | kernel tty layer, and it is up to the program to decide what to do with | |
1029 | it. | |
1030 | ||
1031 | domainname and hostname | |
1032 | ----------------------- | |
1033 | ||
1034 | These files can be controlled to set the NIS domainname and hostname of your | |
1035 | box. For the classic darkstar.frop.org a simple: | |
1036 | ||
1037 | # echo "darkstar" > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname | |
1038 | # echo "frop.org" > /proc/sys/kernel/domainname | |
1039 | ||
1040 | ||
1041 | would suffice to set your hostname and NIS domainname. | |
1042 | ||
1043 | osrelease, ostype and version | |
1044 | ----------------------------- | |
1045 | ||
1046 | The names make it pretty obvious what these fields contain: | |
1047 | ||
1048 | > cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease | |
1049 | 2.2.12 | |
1050 | ||
1051 | > cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype | |
1052 | Linux | |
1053 | ||
1054 | > cat /proc/sys/kernel/version | |
1055 | #4 Fri Oct 1 12:41:14 PDT 1999 | |
1056 | ||
1057 | ||
1058 | The files osrelease and ostype should be clear enough. Version needs a little | |
1059 | more clarification. The #4 means that this is the 4th kernel built from this | |
1060 | source base and the date after it indicates the time the kernel was built. The | |
1061 | only way to tune these values is to rebuild the kernel. | |
1062 | ||
1063 | panic | |
1064 | ----- | |
1065 | ||
1066 | The value in this file represents the number of seconds the kernel waits | |
1067 | before rebooting on a panic. When you use the software watchdog, the | |
1068 | recommended setting is 60. If set to 0, the auto reboot after a kernel panic | |
1069 | is disabled, which is the default setting. | |
1070 | ||
1071 | printk | |
1072 | ------ | |
1073 | ||
1074 | The four values in printk denote | |
1075 | * console_loglevel, | |
1076 | * default_message_loglevel, | |
1077 | * minimum_console_loglevel and | |
1078 | * default_console_loglevel | |
1079 | respectively. | |
1080 | ||
1081 | These values influence printk() behavior when printing or logging error | |
1082 | messages, which come from inside the kernel. See syslog(2) for more | |
1083 | information on the different log levels. | |
1084 | ||
1085 | console_loglevel | |
1086 | ---------------- | |
1087 | ||
1088 | Messages with a higher priority than this will be printed to the console. | |
1089 | ||
1090 | default_message_level | |
1091 | --------------------- | |
1092 | ||
1093 | Messages without an explicit priority will be printed with this priority. | |
1094 | ||
1095 | minimum_console_loglevel | |
1096 | ------------------------ | |
1097 | ||
1098 | Minimum (highest) value to which the console_loglevel can be set. | |
1099 | ||
1100 | default_console_loglevel | |
1101 | ------------------------ | |
1102 | ||
1103 | Default value for console_loglevel. | |
1104 | ||
1105 | sg-big-buff | |
1106 | ----------- | |
1107 | ||
1108 | This file shows the size of the generic SCSI (sg) buffer. At this point, you | |
1109 | can't tune it yet, but you can change it at compile time by editing | |
1110 | include/scsi/sg.h and changing the value of SG_BIG_BUFF. | |
1111 | ||
1112 | If you use a scanner with SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) you might want to set | |
1113 | this to a higher value. Refer to the SANE documentation on this issue. | |
1114 | ||
1115 | modprobe | |
1116 | -------- | |
1117 | ||
1118 | The location where the modprobe binary is located. The kernel uses this | |
1119 | program to load modules on demand. | |
1120 | ||
1121 | unknown_nmi_panic | |
1122 | ----------------- | |
1123 | ||
1124 | The value in this file affects behavior of handling NMI. When the value is | |
1125 | non-zero, unknown NMI is trapped and then panic occurs. At that time, kernel | |
1126 | debugging information is displayed on console. | |
1127 | ||
1128 | NMI switch that most IA32 servers have fires unknown NMI up, for example. | |
1129 | If a system hangs up, try pressing the NMI switch. | |
1130 | ||
e33e89ab DZ |
1131 | nmi_watchdog |
1132 | ------------ | |
1133 | ||
1134 | Enables/Disables the NMI watchdog on x86 systems. When the value is non-zero | |
1135 | the NMI watchdog is enabled and will continuously test all online cpus to | |
1136 | determine whether or not they are still functioning properly. | |
1137 | ||
1138 | Because the NMI watchdog shares registers with oprofile, by disabling the NMI | |
1139 | watchdog, oprofile may have more registers to utilize. | |
1da177e4 | 1140 | |
5096add8 KC |
1141 | maps_protect |
1142 | ------------ | |
1143 | ||
1144 | Enables/Disables the protection of the per-process proc entries "maps" and | |
1145 | "smaps". When enabled, the contents of these files are visible only to | |
1146 | readers that are allowed to ptrace() the given process. | |
1147 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
1148 | |
1149 | 2.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem | |
1150 | ----------------------------------------------- | |
1151 | ||
1152 | The files in this directory can be used to tune the operation of the virtual | |
1153 | memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel. | |
1154 | ||
1155 | vfs_cache_pressure | |
1156 | ------------------ | |
1157 | ||
1158 | Controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for | |
1159 | caching of directory and inode objects. | |
1160 | ||
1161 | At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to | |
1162 | reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and | |
1163 | swapcache reclaim. Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer | |
1164 | to retain dentry and inode caches. Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100 | |
1165 | causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes. | |
1166 | ||
1167 | dirty_background_ratio | |
1168 | ---------------------- | |
1169 | ||
1170 | Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which | |
1171 | the pdflush background writeback daemon will start writing out dirty data. | |
1172 | ||
1173 | dirty_ratio | |
1174 | ----------------- | |
1175 | ||
1176 | Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which | |
1177 | a process which is generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty | |
1178 | data. | |
1179 | ||
1180 | dirty_writeback_centisecs | |
1181 | ------------------------- | |
1182 | ||
1183 | The pdflush writeback daemons will periodically wake up and write `old' data | |
1184 | out to disk. This tunable expresses the interval between those wakeups, in | |
1185 | 100'ths of a second. | |
1186 | ||
1187 | Setting this to zero disables periodic writeback altogether. | |
1188 | ||
1189 | dirty_expire_centisecs | |
1190 | ---------------------- | |
1191 | ||
1192 | This tunable is used to define when dirty data is old enough to be eligible | |
1193 | for writeout by the pdflush daemons. It is expressed in 100'ths of a second. | |
1194 | Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this interval will be | |
1195 | written out next time a pdflush daemon wakes up. | |
1196 | ||
1197 | legacy_va_layout | |
1198 | ---------------- | |
1199 | ||
1200 | If non-zero, this sysctl disables the new 32-bit mmap mmap layout - the kernel | |
1201 | will use the legacy (2.4) layout for all processes. | |
1202 | ||
1203 | lower_zone_protection | |
1204 | --------------------- | |
1205 | ||
1206 | For some specialised workloads on highmem machines it is dangerous for | |
1207 | the kernel to allow process memory to be allocated from the "lowmem" | |
1208 | zone. This is because that memory could then be pinned via the mlock() | |
1209 | system call, or by unavailability of swapspace. | |
1210 | ||
1211 | And on large highmem machines this lack of reclaimable lowmem memory | |
1212 | can be fatal. | |
1213 | ||
1214 | So the Linux page allocator has a mechanism which prevents allocations | |
1215 | which _could_ use highmem from using too much lowmem. This means that | |
1216 | a certain amount of lowmem is defended from the possibility of being | |
1217 | captured into pinned user memory. | |
1218 | ||
1219 | (The same argument applies to the old 16 megabyte ISA DMA region. This | |
1220 | mechanism will also defend that region from allocations which could use | |
1221 | highmem or lowmem). | |
1222 | ||
1223 | The `lower_zone_protection' tunable determines how aggressive the kernel is | |
1224 | in defending these lower zones. The default value is zero - no | |
1225 | protection at all. | |
1226 | ||
1227 | If you have a machine which uses highmem or ISA DMA and your | |
1228 | applications are using mlock(), or if you are running with no swap then | |
1229 | you probably should increase the lower_zone_protection setting. | |
1230 | ||
1231 | The units of this tunable are fairly vague. It is approximately equal | |
4ae0edc2 | 1232 | to "megabytes," so setting lower_zone_protection=100 will protect around 100 |
1da177e4 | 1233 | megabytes of the lowmem zone from user allocations. It will also make |
4ae0edc2 | 1234 | those 100 megabytes unavailable for use by applications and by |
1da177e4 LT |
1235 | pagecache, so there is a cost. |
1236 | ||
1237 | The effects of this tunable may be observed by monitoring | |
1238 | /proc/meminfo:LowFree. Write a single huge file and observe the point | |
1239 | at which LowFree ceases to fall. | |
1240 | ||
1241 | A reasonable value for lower_zone_protection is 100. | |
1242 | ||
1243 | page-cluster | |
1244 | ------------ | |
1245 | ||
1246 | page-cluster controls the number of pages which are written to swap in | |
1247 | a single attempt. The swap I/O size. | |
1248 | ||
1249 | It is a logarithmic value - setting it to zero means "1 page", setting | |
1250 | it to 1 means "2 pages", setting it to 2 means "4 pages", etc. | |
1251 | ||
1252 | The default value is three (eight pages at a time). There may be some | |
1253 | small benefits in tuning this to a different value if your workload is | |
1254 | swap-intensive. | |
1255 | ||
1256 | overcommit_memory | |
1257 | ----------------- | |
1258 | ||
af97c722 CE |
1259 | Controls overcommit of system memory, possibly allowing processes |
1260 | to allocate (but not use) more memory than is actually available. | |
1261 | ||
1262 | ||
1263 | 0 - Heuristic overcommit handling. Obvious overcommits of | |
1264 | address space are refused. Used for a typical system. It | |
1265 | ensures a seriously wild allocation fails while allowing | |
1266 | overcommit to reduce swap usage. root is allowed to | |
53cb4726 | 1267 | allocate slightly more memory in this mode. This is the |
af97c722 CE |
1268 | default. |
1269 | ||
1270 | 1 - Always overcommit. Appropriate for some scientific | |
1271 | applications. | |
1272 | ||
1273 | 2 - Don't overcommit. The total address space commit | |
1274 | for the system is not permitted to exceed swap plus a | |
1275 | configurable percentage (default is 50) of physical RAM. | |
1276 | Depending on the percentage you use, in most situations | |
1277 | this means a process will not be killed while attempting | |
1278 | to use already-allocated memory but will receive errors | |
1279 | on memory allocation as appropriate. | |
1280 | ||
1281 | overcommit_ratio | |
1282 | ---------------- | |
1283 | ||
1284 | Percentage of physical memory size to include in overcommit calculations | |
1285 | (see above.) | |
1286 | ||
1287 | Memory allocation limit = swapspace + physmem * (overcommit_ratio / 100) | |
1288 | ||
1289 | swapspace = total size of all swap areas | |
1290 | physmem = size of physical memory in system | |
1da177e4 LT |
1291 | |
1292 | nr_hugepages and hugetlb_shm_group | |
1293 | ---------------------------------- | |
1294 | ||
1295 | nr_hugepages configures number of hugetlb page reserved for the system. | |
1296 | ||
1297 | hugetlb_shm_group contains group id that is allowed to create SysV shared | |
1298 | memory segment using hugetlb page. | |
1299 | ||
1300 | laptop_mode | |
1301 | ----------- | |
1302 | ||
1303 | laptop_mode is a knob that controls "laptop mode". All the things that are | |
1304 | controlled by this knob are discussed in Documentation/laptop-mode.txt. | |
1305 | ||
1306 | block_dump | |
1307 | ---------- | |
1308 | ||
1309 | block_dump enables block I/O debugging when set to a nonzero value. More | |
1310 | information on block I/O debugging is in Documentation/laptop-mode.txt. | |
1311 | ||
1312 | swap_token_timeout | |
1313 | ------------------ | |
1314 | ||
1315 | This file contains valid hold time of swap out protection token. The Linux | |
1316 | VM has token based thrashing control mechanism and uses the token to prevent | |
1317 | unnecessary page faults in thrashing situation. The unit of the value is | |
1318 | second. The value would be useful to tune thrashing behavior. | |
1319 | ||
9d0243bc AM |
1320 | drop_caches |
1321 | ----------- | |
1322 | ||
1323 | Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and | |
1324 | inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free. | |
1325 | ||
1326 | To free pagecache: | |
1327 | echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches | |
1328 | To free dentries and inodes: | |
1329 | echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches | |
1330 | To free pagecache, dentries and inodes: | |
1331 | echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches | |
1332 | ||
1333 | As this is a non-destructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, the | |
1334 | user should run `sync' first. | |
1335 | ||
1336 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
1337 | 2.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters |
1338 | ---------------------------------------------- | |
1339 | ||
1340 | Currently there is only support for CDROM drives, and for those, there is only | |
1341 | one read-only file containing information about the CD-ROM drives attached to | |
1342 | the system: | |
1343 | ||
1344 | >cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info | |
1345 | CD-ROM information, Id: cdrom.c 2.55 1999/04/25 | |
1346 | ||
1347 | drive name: sr0 hdb | |
1348 | drive speed: 32 40 | |
1349 | drive # of slots: 1 0 | |
1350 | Can close tray: 1 1 | |
1351 | Can open tray: 1 1 | |
1352 | Can lock tray: 1 1 | |
1353 | Can change speed: 1 1 | |
1354 | Can select disk: 0 1 | |
1355 | Can read multisession: 1 1 | |
1356 | Can read MCN: 1 1 | |
1357 | Reports media changed: 1 1 | |
1358 | Can play audio: 1 1 | |
1359 | ||
1360 | ||
1361 | You see two drives, sr0 and hdb, along with a list of their features. | |
1362 | ||
1363 | 2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc - Remote procedure calls | |
1364 | --------------------------------------------- | |
1365 | ||
1366 | This directory contains four files, which enable or disable debugging for the | |
1367 | RPC functions NFS, NFS-daemon, RPC and NLM. The default values are 0. They can | |
1368 | be set to one to turn debugging on. (The default value is 0 for each) | |
1369 | ||
1370 | 2.7 /proc/sys/net - Networking stuff | |
1371 | ------------------------------------ | |
1372 | ||
1373 | The interface to the networking parts of the kernel is located in | |
1374 | /proc/sys/net. Table 2-3 shows all possible subdirectories. You may see only | |
1375 | some of them, depending on your kernel's configuration. | |
1376 | ||
1377 | ||
1378 | Table 2-3: Subdirectories in /proc/sys/net | |
1379 | .............................................................................. | |
1380 | Directory Content Directory Content | |
1381 | core General parameter appletalk Appletalk protocol | |
1382 | unix Unix domain sockets netrom NET/ROM | |
1383 | 802 E802 protocol ax25 AX25 | |
1384 | ethernet Ethernet protocol rose X.25 PLP layer | |
1385 | ipv4 IP version 4 x25 X.25 protocol | |
1386 | ipx IPX token-ring IBM token ring | |
1387 | bridge Bridging decnet DEC net | |
1388 | ipv6 IP version 6 | |
1389 | .............................................................................. | |
1390 | ||
1391 | We will concentrate on IP networking here. Since AX15, X.25, and DEC Net are | |
1392 | only minor players in the Linux world, we'll skip them in this chapter. You'll | |
1393 | find some short info on Appletalk and IPX further on in this chapter. Review | |
1394 | the online documentation and the kernel source to get a detailed view of the | |
1395 | parameters for those protocols. In this section we'll discuss the | |
1396 | subdirectories printed in bold letters in the table above. As default values | |
1397 | are suitable for most needs, there is no need to change these values. | |
1398 | ||
1399 | /proc/sys/net/core - Network core options | |
1400 | ----------------------------------------- | |
1401 | ||
1402 | rmem_default | |
1403 | ------------ | |
1404 | ||
1405 | The default setting of the socket receive buffer in bytes. | |
1406 | ||
1407 | rmem_max | |
1408 | -------- | |
1409 | ||
1410 | The maximum receive socket buffer size in bytes. | |
1411 | ||
1412 | wmem_default | |
1413 | ------------ | |
1414 | ||
1415 | The default setting (in bytes) of the socket send buffer. | |
1416 | ||
1417 | wmem_max | |
1418 | -------- | |
1419 | ||
1420 | The maximum send socket buffer size in bytes. | |
1421 | ||
1422 | message_burst and message_cost | |
1423 | ------------------------------ | |
1424 | ||
1425 | These parameters are used to limit the warning messages written to the kernel | |
1426 | log from the networking code. They enforce a rate limit to make a | |
1427 | denial-of-service attack impossible. A higher message_cost factor, results in | |
1428 | fewer messages that will be written. Message_burst controls when messages will | |
1429 | be dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to one every five | |
1430 | seconds. | |
1431 | ||
a2a316fd SH |
1432 | warnings |
1433 | -------- | |
1434 | ||
1435 | This controls console messages from the networking stack that can occur because | |
1436 | of problems on the network like duplicate address or bad checksums. Normally, | |
1437 | this should be enabled, but if the problem persists the messages can be | |
1438 | disabled. | |
1439 | ||
1440 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
1441 | netdev_max_backlog |
1442 | ------------------ | |
1443 | ||
1444 | Maximum number of packets, queued on the INPUT side, when the interface | |
1445 | receives packets faster than kernel can process them. | |
1446 | ||
1447 | optmem_max | |
1448 | ---------- | |
1449 | ||
1450 | Maximum ancillary buffer size allowed per socket. Ancillary data is a sequence | |
1451 | of struct cmsghdr structures with appended data. | |
1452 | ||
1453 | /proc/sys/net/unix - Parameters for Unix domain sockets | |
1454 | ------------------------------------------------------- | |
1455 | ||
1456 | There are only two files in this subdirectory. They control the delays for | |
1457 | deleting and destroying socket descriptors. | |
1458 | ||
1459 | 2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 - IPV4 settings | |
1460 | -------------------------------------- | |
1461 | ||
1462 | IP version 4 is still the most used protocol in Unix networking. It will be | |
1463 | replaced by IP version 6 in the next couple of years, but for the moment it's | |
1464 | the de facto standard for the internet and is used in most networking | |
1465 | environments around the world. Because of the importance of this protocol, | |
1466 | we'll have a deeper look into the subtree controlling the behavior of the IPv4 | |
1467 | subsystem of the Linux kernel. | |
1468 | ||
1469 | Let's start with the entries in /proc/sys/net/ipv4. | |
1470 | ||
1471 | ICMP settings | |
1472 | ------------- | |
1473 | ||
1474 | icmp_echo_ignore_all and icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts | |
1475 | ---------------------------------------------------- | |
1476 | ||
1477 | Turn on (1) or off (0), if the kernel should ignore all ICMP ECHO requests, or | |
1478 | just those to broadcast and multicast addresses. | |
1479 | ||
1480 | Please note that if you accept ICMP echo requests with a broadcast/multi\-cast | |
1481 | destination address your network may be used as an exploder for denial of | |
1482 | service packet flooding attacks to other hosts. | |
1483 | ||
1484 | icmp_destunreach_rate, icmp_echoreply_rate, icmp_paramprob_rate and icmp_timeexeed_rate | |
1485 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
1486 | ||
1487 | Sets limits for sending ICMP packets to specific targets. A value of zero | |
1488 | disables all limiting. Any positive value sets the maximum package rate in | |
1489 | hundredth of a second (on Intel systems). | |
1490 | ||
1491 | IP settings | |
1492 | ----------- | |
1493 | ||
1494 | ip_autoconfig | |
1495 | ------------- | |
1496 | ||
1497 | This file contains the number one if the host received its IP configuration by | |
1498 | RARP, BOOTP, DHCP or a similar mechanism. Otherwise it is zero. | |
1499 | ||
1500 | ip_default_ttl | |
1501 | -------------- | |
1502 | ||
1503 | TTL (Time To Live) for IPv4 interfaces. This is simply the maximum number of | |
1504 | hops a packet may travel. | |
1505 | ||
1506 | ip_dynaddr | |
1507 | ---------- | |
1508 | ||
1509 | Enable dynamic socket address rewriting on interface address change. This is | |
1510 | useful for dialup interface with changing IP addresses. | |
1511 | ||
1512 | ip_forward | |
1513 | ---------- | |
1514 | ||
1515 | Enable or disable forwarding of IP packages between interfaces. Changing this | |
1516 | value resets all other parameters to their default values. They differ if the | |
1517 | kernel is configured as host or router. | |
1518 | ||
1519 | ip_local_port_range | |
1520 | ------------------- | |
1521 | ||
1522 | Range of ports used by TCP and UDP to choose the local port. Contains two | |
1523 | numbers, the first number is the lowest port, the second number the highest | |
1524 | local port. Default is 1024-4999. Should be changed to 32768-61000 for | |
1525 | high-usage systems. | |
1526 | ||
1527 | ip_no_pmtu_disc | |
1528 | --------------- | |
1529 | ||
1530 | Global switch to turn path MTU discovery off. It can also be set on a per | |
1531 | socket basis by the applications or on a per route basis. | |
1532 | ||
1533 | ip_masq_debug | |
1534 | ------------- | |
1535 | ||
1536 | Enable/disable debugging of IP masquerading. | |
1537 | ||
1538 | IP fragmentation settings | |
1539 | ------------------------- | |
1540 | ||
1541 | ipfrag_high_trash and ipfrag_low_trash | |
1542 | -------------------------------------- | |
1543 | ||
1544 | Maximum memory used to reassemble IP fragments. When ipfrag_high_thresh bytes | |
1545 | of memory is allocated for this purpose, the fragment handler will toss | |
1546 | packets until ipfrag_low_thresh is reached. | |
1547 | ||
1548 | ipfrag_time | |
1549 | ----------- | |
1550 | ||
1551 | Time in seconds to keep an IP fragment in memory. | |
1552 | ||
1553 | TCP settings | |
1554 | ------------ | |
1555 | ||
1556 | tcp_ecn | |
1557 | ------- | |
1558 | ||
fa00e7e1 | 1559 | This file controls the use of the ECN bit in the IPv4 headers. This is a new |
1da177e4 | 1560 | feature about Explicit Congestion Notification, but some routers and firewalls |
fa00e7e1 ML |
1561 | block traffic that has this bit set, so it could be necessary to echo 0 to |
1562 | /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn if you want to talk to these sites. For more info | |
1da177e4 LT |
1563 | you could read RFC2481. |
1564 | ||
1565 | tcp_retrans_collapse | |
1566 | -------------------- | |
1567 | ||
1568 | Bug-to-bug compatibility with some broken printers. On retransmit, try to send | |
1569 | larger packets to work around bugs in certain TCP stacks. Can be turned off by | |
1570 | setting it to zero. | |
1571 | ||
1572 | tcp_keepalive_probes | |
1573 | -------------------- | |
1574 | ||
1575 | Number of keep alive probes TCP sends out, until it decides that the | |
1576 | connection is broken. | |
1577 | ||
1578 | tcp_keepalive_time | |
1579 | ------------------ | |
1580 | ||
1581 | How often TCP sends out keep alive messages, when keep alive is enabled. The | |
1582 | default is 2 hours. | |
1583 | ||
1584 | tcp_syn_retries | |
1585 | --------------- | |
1586 | ||
1587 | Number of times initial SYNs for a TCP connection attempt will be | |
1588 | retransmitted. Should not be higher than 255. This is only the timeout for | |
1589 | outgoing connections, for incoming connections the number of retransmits is | |
1590 | defined by tcp_retries1. | |
1591 | ||
1592 | tcp_sack | |
1593 | -------- | |
1594 | ||
1595 | Enable select acknowledgments after RFC2018. | |
1596 | ||
1597 | tcp_timestamps | |
1598 | -------------- | |
1599 | ||
1600 | Enable timestamps as defined in RFC1323. | |
1601 | ||
1602 | tcp_stdurg | |
1603 | ---------- | |
1604 | ||
1605 | Enable the strict RFC793 interpretation of the TCP urgent pointer field. The | |
1606 | default is to use the BSD compatible interpretation of the urgent pointer | |
1607 | pointing to the first byte after the urgent data. The RFC793 interpretation is | |
1608 | to have it point to the last byte of urgent data. Enabling this option may | |
2fe0ae78 | 1609 | lead to interoperability problems. Disabled by default. |
1da177e4 LT |
1610 | |
1611 | tcp_syncookies | |
1612 | -------------- | |
1613 | ||
1614 | Only valid when the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_SYNCOOKIES. Send out | |
1615 | syncookies when the syn backlog queue of a socket overflows. This is to ward | |
1616 | off the common 'syn flood attack'. Disabled by default. | |
1617 | ||
1618 | Note that the concept of a socket backlog is abandoned. This means the peer | |
1619 | may not receive reliable error messages from an over loaded server with | |
1620 | syncookies enabled. | |
1621 | ||
1622 | tcp_window_scaling | |
1623 | ------------------ | |
1624 | ||
1625 | Enable window scaling as defined in RFC1323. | |
1626 | ||
1627 | tcp_fin_timeout | |
1628 | --------------- | |
1629 | ||
1630 | The length of time in seconds it takes to receive a final FIN before the | |
1631 | socket is always closed. This is strictly a violation of the TCP | |
1632 | specification, but required to prevent denial-of-service attacks. | |
1633 | ||
1634 | tcp_max_ka_probes | |
1635 | ----------------- | |
1636 | ||
1637 | Indicates how many keep alive probes are sent per slow timer run. Should not | |
1638 | be set too high to prevent bursts. | |
1639 | ||
1640 | tcp_max_syn_backlog | |
1641 | ------------------- | |
1642 | ||
1643 | Length of the per socket backlog queue. Since Linux 2.2 the backlog specified | |
1644 | in listen(2) only specifies the length of the backlog queue of already | |
1645 | established sockets. When more connection requests arrive Linux starts to drop | |
1646 | packets. When syncookies are enabled the packets are still answered and the | |
1647 | maximum queue is effectively ignored. | |
1648 | ||
1649 | tcp_retries1 | |
1650 | ------------ | |
1651 | ||
1652 | Defines how often an answer to a TCP connection request is retransmitted | |
1653 | before giving up. | |
1654 | ||
1655 | tcp_retries2 | |
1656 | ------------ | |
1657 | ||
1658 | Defines how often a TCP packet is retransmitted before giving up. | |
1659 | ||
1660 | Interface specific settings | |
1661 | --------------------------- | |
1662 | ||
1663 | In the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf you'll find one subdirectory for each | |
1664 | interface the system knows about and one directory calls all. Changes in the | |
1665 | all subdirectory affect all interfaces, whereas changes in the other | |
1666 | subdirectories affect only one interface. All directories have the same | |
1667 | entries: | |
1668 | ||
1669 | accept_redirects | |
1670 | ---------------- | |
1671 | ||
1672 | This switch decides if the kernel accepts ICMP redirect messages or not. The | |
1673 | default is 'yes' if the kernel is configured for a regular host and 'no' for a | |
1674 | router configuration. | |
1675 | ||
1676 | accept_source_route | |
1677 | ------------------- | |
1678 | ||
1679 | Should source routed packages be accepted or declined. The default is | |
1680 | dependent on the kernel configuration. It's 'yes' for routers and 'no' for | |
1681 | hosts. | |
1682 | ||
1683 | bootp_relay | |
1684 | ~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
1685 | ||
1686 | Accept packets with source address 0.b.c.d with destinations not to this host | |
1687 | as local ones. It is supposed that a BOOTP relay daemon will catch and forward | |
1688 | such packets. | |
1689 | ||
1690 | The default is 0, since this feature is not implemented yet (kernel version | |
1691 | 2.2.12). | |
1692 | ||
1693 | forwarding | |
1694 | ---------- | |
1695 | ||
1696 | Enable or disable IP forwarding on this interface. | |
1697 | ||
1698 | log_martians | |
1699 | ------------ | |
1700 | ||
1701 | Log packets with source addresses with no known route to kernel log. | |
1702 | ||
1703 | mc_forwarding | |
1704 | ------------- | |
1705 | ||
1706 | Do multicast routing. The kernel needs to be compiled with CONFIG_MROUTE and a | |
1707 | multicast routing daemon is required. | |
1708 | ||
1709 | proxy_arp | |
1710 | --------- | |
1711 | ||
1712 | Does (1) or does not (0) perform proxy ARP. | |
1713 | ||
1714 | rp_filter | |
1715 | --------- | |
1716 | ||
1717 | Integer value determines if a source validation should be made. 1 means yes, 0 | |
1718 | means no. Disabled by default, but local/broadcast address spoofing is always | |
1719 | on. | |
1720 | ||
1721 | If you set this to 1 on a router that is the only connection for a network to | |
1722 | the net, it will prevent spoofing attacks against your internal networks | |
1723 | (external addresses can still be spoofed), without the need for additional | |
1724 | firewall rules. | |
1725 | ||
1726 | secure_redirects | |
1727 | ---------------- | |
1728 | ||
1729 | Accept ICMP redirect messages only for gateways, listed in default gateway | |
1730 | list. Enabled by default. | |
1731 | ||
1732 | shared_media | |
1733 | ------------ | |
1734 | ||
1735 | If it is not set the kernel does not assume that different subnets on this | |
1736 | device can communicate directly. Default setting is 'yes'. | |
1737 | ||
1738 | send_redirects | |
1739 | -------------- | |
1740 | ||
1741 | Determines whether to send ICMP redirects to other hosts. | |
1742 | ||
1743 | Routing settings | |
1744 | ---------------- | |
1745 | ||
1746 | The directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route contains several file to control | |
1747 | routing issues. | |
1748 | ||
1749 | error_burst and error_cost | |
1750 | -------------------------- | |
1751 | ||
1752 | These parameters are used to limit how many ICMP destination unreachable to | |
1753 | send from the host in question. ICMP destination unreachable messages are | |
84eb8d06 | 1754 | sent when we cannot reach the next hop while trying to transmit a packet. |
1da177e4 LT |
1755 | It will also print some error messages to kernel logs if someone is ignoring |
1756 | our ICMP redirects. The higher the error_cost factor is, the fewer | |
1757 | destination unreachable and error messages will be let through. Error_burst | |
1758 | controls when destination unreachable messages and error messages will be | |
1759 | dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to five every second. | |
1760 | ||
1761 | flush | |
1762 | ----- | |
1763 | ||
1764 | Writing to this file results in a flush of the routing cache. | |
1765 | ||
1766 | gc_elasticity, gc_interval, gc_min_interval_ms, gc_timeout, gc_thresh | |
1767 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
1768 | ||
1769 | Values to control the frequency and behavior of the garbage collection | |
1770 | algorithm for the routing cache. gc_min_interval is deprecated and replaced | |
1771 | by gc_min_interval_ms. | |
1772 | ||
1773 | ||
1774 | max_size | |
1775 | -------- | |
1776 | ||
1777 | Maximum size of the routing cache. Old entries will be purged once the cache | |
1778 | reached has this size. | |
1779 | ||
1780 | max_delay, min_delay | |
1781 | -------------------- | |
1782 | ||
1783 | Delays for flushing the routing cache. | |
1784 | ||
1785 | redirect_load, redirect_number | |
1786 | ------------------------------ | |
1787 | ||
1788 | Factors which determine if more ICPM redirects should be sent to a specific | |
1789 | host. No redirects will be sent once the load limit or the maximum number of | |
1790 | redirects has been reached. | |
1791 | ||
1792 | redirect_silence | |
1793 | ---------------- | |
1794 | ||
1795 | Timeout for redirects. After this period redirects will be sent again, even if | |
1796 | this has been stopped, because the load or number limit has been reached. | |
1797 | ||
1798 | Network Neighbor handling | |
1799 | ------------------------- | |
1800 | ||
1801 | Settings about how to handle connections with direct neighbors (nodes attached | |
1802 | to the same link) can be found in the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh. | |
1803 | ||
1804 | As we saw it in the conf directory, there is a default subdirectory which | |
1805 | holds the default values, and one directory for each interface. The contents | |
1806 | of the directories are identical, with the single exception that the default | |
1807 | settings contain additional options to set garbage collection parameters. | |
1808 | ||
1809 | In the interface directories you'll find the following entries: | |
1810 | ||
1811 | base_reachable_time, base_reachable_time_ms | |
1812 | ------------------------------------------- | |
1813 | ||
1814 | A base value used for computing the random reachable time value as specified | |
1815 | in RFC2461. | |
1816 | ||
1817 | Expression of base_reachable_time, which is deprecated, is in seconds. | |
1818 | Expression of base_reachable_time_ms is in milliseconds. | |
1819 | ||
1820 | retrans_time, retrans_time_ms | |
1821 | ----------------------------- | |
1822 | ||
1823 | The time between retransmitted Neighbor Solicitation messages. | |
1824 | Used for address resolution and to determine if a neighbor is | |
1825 | unreachable. | |
1826 | ||
1827 | Expression of retrans_time, which is deprecated, is in 1/100 seconds (for | |
1828 | IPv4) or in jiffies (for IPv6). | |
1829 | Expression of retrans_time_ms is in milliseconds. | |
1830 | ||
1831 | unres_qlen | |
1832 | ---------- | |
1833 | ||
1834 | Maximum queue length for a pending arp request - the number of packets which | |
1835 | are accepted from other layers while the ARP address is still resolved. | |
1836 | ||
1837 | anycast_delay | |
1838 | ------------- | |
1839 | ||
1840 | Maximum for random delay of answers to neighbor solicitation messages in | |
1841 | jiffies (1/100 sec). Not yet implemented (Linux does not have anycast support | |
1842 | yet). | |
1843 | ||
1844 | ucast_solicit | |
1845 | ------------- | |
1846 | ||
1847 | Maximum number of retries for unicast solicitation. | |
1848 | ||
1849 | mcast_solicit | |
1850 | ------------- | |
1851 | ||
1852 | Maximum number of retries for multicast solicitation. | |
1853 | ||
1854 | delay_first_probe_time | |
1855 | ---------------------- | |
1856 | ||
1857 | Delay for the first time probe if the neighbor is reachable. (see | |
1858 | gc_stale_time) | |
1859 | ||
1860 | locktime | |
1861 | -------- | |
1862 | ||
1863 | An ARP/neighbor entry is only replaced with a new one if the old is at least | |
1864 | locktime old. This prevents ARP cache thrashing. | |
1865 | ||
1866 | proxy_delay | |
1867 | ----------- | |
1868 | ||
1869 | Maximum time (real time is random [0..proxytime]) before answering to an ARP | |
1870 | request for which we have an proxy ARP entry. In some cases, this is used to | |
1871 | prevent network flooding. | |
1872 | ||
1873 | proxy_qlen | |
1874 | ---------- | |
1875 | ||
1876 | Maximum queue length of the delayed proxy arp timer. (see proxy_delay). | |
1877 | ||
53cb4726 | 1878 | app_solicit |
1da177e4 LT |
1879 | ---------- |
1880 | ||
1881 | Determines the number of requests to send to the user level ARP daemon. Use 0 | |
1882 | to turn off. | |
1883 | ||
1884 | gc_stale_time | |
1885 | ------------- | |
1886 | ||
1887 | Determines how often to check for stale ARP entries. After an ARP entry is | |
1888 | stale it will be resolved again (which is useful when an IP address migrates | |
1889 | to another machine). When ucast_solicit is greater than 0 it first tries to | |
1890 | send an ARP packet directly to the known host When that fails and | |
1891 | mcast_solicit is greater than 0, an ARP request is broadcasted. | |
1892 | ||
1893 | 2.9 Appletalk | |
1894 | ------------- | |
1895 | ||
1896 | The /proc/sys/net/appletalk directory holds the Appletalk configuration data | |
1897 | when Appletalk is loaded. The configurable parameters are: | |
1898 | ||
1899 | aarp-expiry-time | |
1900 | ---------------- | |
1901 | ||
1902 | The amount of time we keep an ARP entry before expiring it. Used to age out | |
1903 | old hosts. | |
1904 | ||
1905 | aarp-resolve-time | |
1906 | ----------------- | |
1907 | ||
1908 | The amount of time we will spend trying to resolve an Appletalk address. | |
1909 | ||
1910 | aarp-retransmit-limit | |
1911 | --------------------- | |
1912 | ||
1913 | The number of times we will retransmit a query before giving up. | |
1914 | ||
1915 | aarp-tick-time | |
1916 | -------------- | |
1917 | ||
1918 | Controls the rate at which expires are checked. | |
1919 | ||
1920 | The directory /proc/net/appletalk holds the list of active Appletalk sockets | |
1921 | on a machine. | |
1922 | ||
1923 | The fields indicate the DDP type, the local address (in network:node format) | |
1924 | the remote address, the size of the transmit pending queue, the size of the | |
1925 | received queue (bytes waiting for applications to read) the state and the uid | |
1926 | owning the socket. | |
1927 | ||
1928 | /proc/net/atalk_iface lists all the interfaces configured for appletalk.It | |
1929 | shows the name of the interface, its Appletalk address, the network range on | |
1930 | that address (or network number for phase 1 networks), and the status of the | |
1931 | interface. | |
1932 | ||
1933 | /proc/net/atalk_route lists each known network route. It lists the target | |
1934 | (network) that the route leads to, the router (may be directly connected), the | |
1935 | route flags, and the device the route is using. | |
1936 | ||
1937 | 2.10 IPX | |
1938 | -------- | |
1939 | ||
1940 | The IPX protocol has no tunable values in proc/sys/net. | |
1941 | ||
1942 | The IPX protocol does, however, provide proc/net/ipx. This lists each IPX | |
1943 | socket giving the local and remote addresses in Novell format (that is | |
1944 | network:node:port). In accordance with the strange Novell tradition, | |
1945 | everything but the port is in hex. Not_Connected is displayed for sockets that | |
1946 | are not tied to a specific remote address. The Tx and Rx queue sizes indicate | |
1947 | the number of bytes pending for transmission and reception. The state | |
1948 | indicates the state the socket is in and the uid is the owning uid of the | |
1949 | socket. | |
1950 | ||
1951 | The /proc/net/ipx_interface file lists all IPX interfaces. For each interface | |
1952 | it gives the network number, the node number, and indicates if the network is | |
1953 | the primary network. It also indicates which device it is bound to (or | |
1954 | Internal for internal networks) and the Frame Type if appropriate. Linux | |
1955 | supports 802.3, 802.2, 802.2 SNAP and DIX (Blue Book) ethernet framing for | |
1956 | IPX. | |
1957 | ||
1958 | The /proc/net/ipx_route table holds a list of IPX routes. For each route it | |
1959 | gives the destination network, the router node (or Directly) and the network | |
1960 | address of the router (or Connected) for internal networks. | |
1961 | ||
1962 | 2.11 /proc/sys/fs/mqueue - POSIX message queues filesystem | |
1963 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | |
1964 | ||
1965 | The "mqueue" filesystem provides the necessary kernel features to enable the | |
1966 | creation of a user space library that implements the POSIX message queues | |
1967 | API (as noted by the MSG tag in the POSIX 1003.1-2001 version of the System | |
1968 | Interfaces specification.) | |
1969 | ||
1970 | The "mqueue" filesystem contains values for determining/setting the amount of | |
1971 | resources used by the file system. | |
1972 | ||
1973 | /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/queues_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the | |
1974 | maximum number of message queues allowed on the system. | |
1975 | ||
1976 | /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msg_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the | |
1977 | maximum number of messages in a queue value. In fact it is the limiting value | |
1978 | for another (user) limit which is set in mq_open invocation. This attribute of | |
1979 | a queue must be less or equal then msg_max. | |
1980 | ||
1981 | /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msgsize_max is a read/write file for setting/getting the | |
1982 | maximum message size value (it is every message queue's attribute set during | |
1983 | its creation). | |
1984 | ||
d7ff0dbf JFM |
1985 | 2.12 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj - Adjust the oom-killer score |
1986 | ------------------------------------------------------ | |
1987 | ||
1988 | This file can be used to adjust the score used to select which processes | |
1989 | should be killed in an out-of-memory situation. Giving it a high score will | |
1990 | increase the likelihood of this process being killed by the oom-killer. Valid | |
1991 | values are in the range -16 to +15, plus the special value -17, which disables | |
1992 | oom-killing altogether for this process. | |
1993 | ||
1994 | 2.13 /proc/<pid>/oom_score - Display current oom-killer score | |
1995 | ------------------------------------------------------------- | |
1996 | ||
1997 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
1998 | This file can be used to check the current score used by the oom-killer is for | |
1999 | any given <pid>. Use it together with /proc/<pid>/oom_adj to tune which | |
2000 | process should be killed in an out-of-memory situation. | |
1da177e4 LT |
2001 | |
2002 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
2003 | Summary | |
2004 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
2005 | Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the | |
2006 | need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the | |
2007 | /proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo | |
2008 | command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings | |
2009 | of the kernel. | |
2010 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
f9c99463 RK |
2011 | |
2012 | 2.14 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields | |
2013 | ------------------------------------------------------- | |
2014 | ||
2015 | This file contains IO statistics for each running process | |
2016 | ||
2017 | Example | |
2018 | ------- | |
2019 | ||
2020 | test:/tmp # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.dat & | |
2021 | [1] 3828 | |
2022 | ||
2023 | test:/tmp # cat /proc/3828/io | |
2024 | rchar: 323934931 | |
2025 | wchar: 323929600 | |
2026 | syscr: 632687 | |
2027 | syscw: 632675 | |
2028 | read_bytes: 0 | |
2029 | write_bytes: 323932160 | |
2030 | cancelled_write_bytes: 0 | |
2031 | ||
2032 | ||
2033 | Description | |
2034 | ----------- | |
2035 | ||
2036 | rchar | |
2037 | ----- | |
2038 | ||
2039 | I/O counter: chars read | |
2040 | The number of bytes which this task has caused to be read from storage. This | |
2041 | is simply the sum of bytes which this process passed to read() and pread(). | |
2042 | It includes things like tty IO and it is unaffected by whether or not actual | |
2043 | physical disk IO was required (the read might have been satisfied from | |
2044 | pagecache) | |
2045 | ||
2046 | ||
2047 | wchar | |
2048 | ----- | |
2049 | ||
2050 | I/O counter: chars written | |
2051 | The number of bytes which this task has caused, or shall cause to be written | |
2052 | to disk. Similar caveats apply here as with rchar. | |
2053 | ||
2054 | ||
2055 | syscr | |
2056 | ----- | |
2057 | ||
2058 | I/O counter: read syscalls | |
2059 | Attempt to count the number of read I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like read() | |
2060 | and pread(). | |
2061 | ||
2062 | ||
2063 | syscw | |
2064 | ----- | |
2065 | ||
2066 | I/O counter: write syscalls | |
2067 | Attempt to count the number of write I/O operations, i.e. syscalls like | |
2068 | write() and pwrite(). | |
2069 | ||
2070 | ||
2071 | read_bytes | |
2072 | ---------- | |
2073 | ||
2074 | I/O counter: bytes read | |
2075 | Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process really did cause to | |
2076 | be fetched from the storage layer. Done at the submit_bio() level, so it is | |
2077 | accurate for block-backed filesystems. <please add status regarding NFS and | |
2078 | CIFS at a later time> | |
2079 | ||
2080 | ||
2081 | write_bytes | |
2082 | ----------- | |
2083 | ||
2084 | I/O counter: bytes written | |
2085 | Attempt to count the number of bytes which this process caused to be sent to | |
2086 | the storage layer. This is done at page-dirtying time. | |
2087 | ||
2088 | ||
2089 | cancelled_write_bytes | |
2090 | --------------------- | |
2091 | ||
2092 | The big inaccuracy here is truncate. If a process writes 1MB to a file and | |
2093 | then deletes the file, it will in fact perform no writeout. But it will have | |
2094 | been accounted as having caused 1MB of write. | |
2095 | In other words: The number of bytes which this process caused to not happen, | |
2096 | by truncating pagecache. A task can cause "negative" IO too. If this task | |
2097 | truncates some dirty pagecache, some IO which another task has been accounted | |
2098 | for (in it's write_bytes) will not be happening. We _could_ just subtract that | |
2099 | from the truncating task's write_bytes, but there is information loss in doing | |
2100 | that. | |
2101 | ||
2102 | ||
2103 | Note | |
2104 | ---- | |
2105 | ||
2106 | At its current implementation state, this is a bit racy on 32-bit machines: if | |
2107 | process A reads process B's /proc/pid/io while process B is updating one of | |
2108 | those 64-bit counters, process A could see an intermediate result. | |
2109 | ||
2110 | ||
2111 | More information about this can be found within the taskstats documentation in | |
2112 | Documentation/accounting. | |
2113 | ||
2114 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |