Name
/proc/pid/exe - symbolic link to program pathnameDescription
/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.
See Also
- proc(5)