Administer Linux on the fly Use the /proc filesystem

Administer Linux on the fly Use the /proc filesystem to get a handle on your system

Graham White (gwhite@uk.ibm.com), IT specialist, Hursley, IBM, Software Group

Graham graduated from The University of Exeter with a B.Sc. (Honors) degree in Computer Science with Management Science in July 2000. He joined IBM as an IT support worker in September 2000 with no previous experience and started learning Linux. One year later, in September 2001, he was certified as a Red Hat Certified Engineer. His work and personal interests gave him experience with many different versions of Linux running on a wide range of platforms to support the development community at the IBM Hursley Laboratory in the UK. Recently, he has taken up writing articles about Linux, his first and only other publication being a guide for the Linux Documentation Project. Contact Graham at gwhite at uk.ibm.com.

Summary: The /proc filesystem is one of great features of Linux®, and this article gives you a thorough grounding in some of its most useful aspects. With it, you can administer many details of the operating system without ever having to shut down and reboot the machine, which is a boon for those who need to keep their systems as available as possible.


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Date: 14 May 2003
Level: Intermediate
Activity: 9524 views
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Anyone who has administered a system of commercial importance knows the value of uptime -- or, conversely, knows the headaches you get from users because of downtime. One of the main reasons a company will run a UNIX server is because of its reliability and stability. If managed carefully, there's usually no need to restart these servers for long periods of time. And to improve matters further, there are administrative tasks -- even at the kernel level -- that you can perform on the fly, keeping your servers available. While you may still need to restart a system to upgrade hardware or if someone trips over the power cord, it's good to know that many administrative tasks can be performed without disrupting service.

This article includes hints and tips for performing various