NAME¶
/proc/pid/exe - symbolic link to program pathname
DESCRIPTION¶
- /proc/pid/exe
- Under Linux 2.2 and later, this file is a symbolic link containing the
actual pathname of the executed command. This symbolic link can be
dereferenced normally; attempting to open it will open the executable. You
can even type /proc/pid/exe to run another copy of the same
executable that is being run by process pid. If the pathname has
been unlinked, the symbolic link will contain the string
' (deleted)' appended to the original pathname. In a multithreaded
process, the contents of this symbolic link are not available if the main
thread has already terminated (typically by calling
pthread_exit(3)).
- Permission to dereference or read (readlink(2)) this symbolic link
is governed by a ptrace access mode PTRACE_MODE_READ_FSCREDS check;
see ptrace(2).
- Under Linux 2.0 and earlier, /proc/pid/exe is a pointer to
the binary which was executed, and appears as a symbolic link. A
readlink(2) call on this file under Linux 2.0 returns a string in
the format:
-
[device]:inode
- For example, [0301]:1502 would be inode 1502 on device major 03 (IDE, MFM,
etc. drives) minor 01 (first partition on the first drive).
- find(1) with the -inum option can be used to locate the
file.