Linux – Where does netstat get the process name

linuxnetstatprocess

I am developing a node application and there is an option to set the process title (process name). This only sets it in some tools (like ps and top), but not in htop or netstat.

I found this article that explained how most applications do it, but it doesn't change in netstat.

That lead me to wonder where those programs are getting the process name. Would they be getting it from /proc/##/cmdline? (## being the PID of the process)

I figure messing with things in /proc is a bad idea (and probably not possible), so if this is where those programs are getting it, is there a way to change it?

Best Answer

There is nothing wrong with reading things from /proc. In fact, that is where those tools get that information from. There are actually three files with the command name.

/proc/PID/cmdline
/proc/PID/stat
/proc/PID/status

I believe it is usually obtained from stat.

Related Solutions

Linux – How to interpret the output of netstat -o / netstat –timers

The first number is clearly the countdown timer. Depending on status type, once the timer times out, it will retry and send out another FIN or whatever needed packet to try again. So the second number keeps track of the number of retries. Notice that the timer increases because TCP has backoff timers in case there is a traffic condition. The backoff timer avoids excessively frequent retries. Each failure results in a larger and larger backoff. The backoff could be exponential growth or linear, depending on TCP stack. I have not figured out what the 3 figure is for. Always zero in my displays.

What does ‘Listening’ refer to when looking at the results displayed by netstat

Use the -b option on Windows' netstat command to show what program is listening

  -a            Displays all connections and listening ports.
  -b            Displays the executable involved in creating each connection or
                listening port. In some cases well-known executables host
                multiple independent components, and in these cases the
                sequence of components involved in creating the connection
                or listening port is displayed. In this case the executable
                name is in [] at the bottom, on top is the component it called,
                and so forth until TCP/IP was reached. Note that this option
                can be time-consuming and will fail unless you have sufficient
                permissions.

Generally, it is only server type applications that listen for incoming connections. Windows however also has services that listen for NETBIOS broadcasts and other types of MS network chatter.

C:\> netstat -ab

Active Connections

  Proto  Local Address          Foreign Address        State           PID
  TCP    Boxname:http           Boxname:0              LISTENING       1708
  [Apache]

  TCP    Boxname:netbios-ssn    Boxname:0              LISTENING       4
  [System]

  …

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – How to interpret the output of netstat -o / netstat –timers

What does ‘Listening’ refer to when looking at the results displayed by netstat

Related Question