Command line and full screen utilities for browsing procfs, a "pseudo" file system dynamically generated by Linux to provide information about the status of entries in its process table.
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Craig Small 625d0809da pkill: Return 0 if successfully killed process
Original report:
When trying kill a process with insufficient privileges (see blow),
pkill displays the error message “... failed: Operation not permitted”,
but returns 0. Surely it should return 3?

$ pkill syslogd ; echo $?
pkill: killing pid 373 failed: Operation not permitted
0

Return value 0 means one of more things matched. For a pgrep (which
shares code with pkill) this makes sense, there was a match. It seems
wrong for pkill to return 0 when it in fact could not do what you told
it to.  However return value 3 means a fatal error and it's not fatal.

Looking at other programs when trying to kill things it cannot kill.
shell kill returns 1, procps kill returns 1, killall returns 1, skill
returns 0 (and says it was successful!, ah well poor old skill)

The consensus seems to be that you return 1 if you cannot kill it, even
if you found it. In other words the return value for both not found and
not able to kill it is the same.

pkill only returns 0 if something was killed. This means we found a
match AND the kill() system call worked too.

References:
 https://bugs.debian.org/852758

Signed-off-by: Craig Small <csmall@enc.com.au>
2017-02-04 11:44:01 +11:00
contrib miscellaneous: clean up trailing whitespace once again 2013-04-07 18:05:01 +10:00
Documentation miscellaneous: remove some trailing whitespace buildup 2015-06-20 07:46:23 +10:00
include misc: fix strtod_nol_err tests 2016-07-13 20:08:51 +10:00
lib misc: fix strtod_nol_err tests 2016-07-13 20:08:51 +10:00
man-po ps: recognize SCHED_DEADLINE 2016-11-07 10:23:01 +01:00
misc build-sys: rename the 'tools' subdirectory to 'misc' 2012-03-02 21:25:38 +11:00
po Merge branch 'free_french_alignment' into 'master' 2016-08-23 10:44:53 +00:00
proc Merge branch 'fix-99d71ad' into 'master' 2016-12-20 15:01:18 +00:00
ps ps: provide 'namespace' protection for 32-bit compiles 2016-12-07 21:51:14 +11:00
testsuite pgrep: warning about 15+ chars name only if zero matches found 2017-01-02 14:50:22 +01:00
top top: Add unobtrusive XDG support 2017-01-17 23:47:40 +00:00
.gitignore A locale-independent strtod 2016-03-03 21:24:08 +11:00
.gitlab-ci.yml added gettext to dependency 2016-04-20 22:15:27 +10:00
AUTHORS Changed git site to gitlab 2015-05-10 14:57:50 +10:00
autogen.sh Fix a remaining util-linux word in autogen 2012-02-26 08:39:16 +11:00
ChangeLog Changed git site to gitlab 2015-05-10 14:57:50 +10:00
configure.ac configure.ac: use pkg-config to get ncursesw header location 2016-08-07 11:36:10 +02:00
COPYING license: update FSF addresses 2012-03-04 08:04:24 +11:00
COPYING.LIB miscellaneous: clean up trailing whitespace once again 2013-04-07 18:05:01 +10:00
create-man-pot.sh docs: with systemd now in library, remember openproc.3 2014-07-18 20:49:57 +02:00
free.1 watch,free: interpet intervals in non-locale way 2016-07-03 16:14:36 +10:00
free.c watch,free: interpet intervals in non-locale way 2016-07-03 16:14:36 +10:00
INSTALL.md docs: Updated documentation 2015-05-10 17:23:54 +10:00
kill.1 docs: fix manual page warnings 2012-04-16 12:55:53 +02:00
Makefile.am configure.ac: use pkg-config to get ncursesw header location 2016-08-07 11:36:10 +02:00
NEWS pkill: Return 0 if successfully killed process 2017-02-04 11:44:01 +11:00
pgrep.1 pkill: Return 0 if successfully killed process 2017-02-04 11:44:01 +11:00
pgrep.c pkill: Return 0 if successfully killed process 2017-02-04 11:44:01 +11:00
pidof.1 pidof: support for omitted %PPID and additional separators 2013-10-14 15:38:33 +02:00
pidof.c pidof: check cmd if space in argv0 2016-04-17 16:43:26 +10:00
pkill.1 procps 010114 2002-02-01 22:47:29 +00:00
pmap.1 pmap: Including -p in the man page 2013-11-26 13:45:22 +01:00
pmap.c pmap: fix printing bug associated with the '-x' option 2016-09-11 09:21:44 +10:00
pwdx.1 docs: fix manual page warnings 2012-04-16 12:55:53 +02:00
pwdx.c Handle out of memory conditions. 2015-07-11 21:28:47 +02:00
README.md misc: repair a single instance of 'whitespace' boo-boo 2016-07-09 13:23:27 +10:00
skill.1 skill: support namespaces 2013-04-18 13:59:44 -04:00
skill.c library: rename clashing pwcache functions 2016-07-06 22:26:02 +10:00
slabtop.1 procps: Add a zero-width break point in slabtop.1 2015-06-01 22:04:40 +10:00
slabtop.c 'slabtop -o' with stdin not a tty would complain 2015-01-24 17:27:12 +11:00
snice.1 procps 010114 2002-02-01 22:47:29 +00:00
sysctl.8 docs: Fix typos in slabtop.1, sysctl.8 and uptime.1 2014-09-16 19:35:28 +02:00
sysctl.c sysctl.c: use strchr() instead of index() 2016-08-07 11:32:52 +02:00
sysctl.conf docs: remove tcp_default_win_scale from sysctl.conf sample 2012-01-24 22:34:12 +01:00
sysctl.conf.5 misc: remove some newly introduced trailing whitespace 2016-09-26 07:41:04 +10:00
tload.1 docs: fix manual page warnings 2012-04-16 12:55:53 +02:00
tload.c tload: fix lockup 2014-08-27 18:59:27 +02:00
translate-man.sh Fixed translate-man.sh for no top ps 2014-05-28 20:12:33 +10:00
uptime.1 docs: Fix typos in slabtop.1, sysctl.8 and uptime.1 2014-09-16 19:35:28 +02:00
uptime.c Merge commit 'refs/merge-requests/2' of git://gitorious.org/procps/procps into merge-requests/2 2013-09-11 20:50:48 +10:00
vmstat.8 library: reverting tmpfs subtraction from cached (18-FEB-2014) 2014-04-30 13:59:34 +02:00
vmstat.c Use <dirent.h> instead of <sys/dir.h> 2014-08-26 16:01:57 +02:00
w.1 sysctl, w: miscelaneous usage/man fixes 2013-07-19 14:50:02 +02:00
w.c Added Cygwin build support 2016-03-10 15:04:27 -08:00
watch.1 documentation: Update watch man page 2016-07-03 16:16:28 +10:00
watch.c configure.ac: use pkg-config to get ncursesw header location 2016-08-07 11:36:10 +02:00

build status procps

procps is a set of command line and full-screen utilities that provide information out of the pseudo-filesystem most commonly located at /proc. This filesystem provides a simple interface to the kernel data structures. The programs of procps generally concentrate on the structures that describe the processess running on the system.

The following programs are found in procps:

  • free - Report the amount of free and used memory in the system
  • kill - Send a signal to a process based on PID
  • pgrep - List processes based on name or other attributes
  • pkill - Send a signal to a process based on name or other attributes
  • pmap - Report memory map of a process
  • ps - Report information of processes
  • pwdx - Report current directory of a process
  • skill - Obsolete version of pgrep/pkill
  • slabtop - Display kernel slab cache information in real time
  • snice - Renice a process
  • sysctl - Read or Write kernel parameters at run-time
  • tload - Graphical representation of system load average
  • top - Dynamic real-time view of running processes
  • uptime - Display how long the system has been running
  • vmstat - Report virtual memory statistics
  • w - Report logged in users and what they are doing
  • watch - Execute a program periodically, showing output fullscreen

Reporting Bugs

There are a few ways of reporting bugs or feature requests:

  1. Your distributions bug reporter. If you are using a distribution your first port of call is their bug tracker. This is because each distribution has their own patches and way of dealing with bugs. Also bug reporting often does not need any subscription to websites.
  2. GitLab Issues - To the left of this page is the issue tracker. You can report bugs here.
  3. Email list - We have an email list (see below) where you can report bugs. The problem with this method is bug reports often get lost and cannot be tracked. This is especially a big problem when its something that will take time to resolve.

If you need to report bugs, there is more details on the Bug Reporting page.

Email List

The email list for the developers and users of procps is found at http://www.freelists.org/archive/procps/ This email list discusses the development of procps and is used by distributions to also forward or discuss bugs.