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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-14 20:34:44 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-14 20:34:44 +0000
commite3be059d4da38aa36f1aee1d56f8ceb943d92f1c (patch)
tree26edef31e4e503dd1c92a112de174f366dd61802 /doc
parentInitial commit. (diff)
downloadprocps-upstream/2%4.0.4.tar.xz
procps-upstream/2%4.0.4.zip
Adding upstream version 2:4.0.4.upstream/2%4.0.4upstream
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Diffstat (limited to '')
-rw-r--r--doc/CodingStyle.md27
-rw-r--r--doc/FAQ97
-rw-r--r--doc/TODO145
-rw-r--r--doc/bugs.md92
-rw-r--r--doc/libproc.supp78
5 files changed, 439 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/CodingStyle.md b/doc/CodingStyle.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/doc/CodingStyle.md
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+Most developers find Linux coding style easy to read, and there is
+really no reason to reinvent this practise, so procps-ng goes along
+with others.
+
+http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/CodingStyle
+
+In addition to Linux coding style this project has few additional
+wishes to contributors.
+
+* Many small patches are favoured over one big. Break down is done on
+ basis of logical functionality; for example #endif mark ups,
+ compiler warning and exit codes fixes all should be individual
+ small patches.
+
+* Use 'FIXME: ' in code comments, manual pages, autotools files,
+ scripts and so on to indicate something is wrong. The reason we do
+ is as simple as being able to find easily where problem areas are.
+
+* In writing arithmetic comparisons, use "<" and "<=" rather than
+ ">" and ">=". For some justification, read this:
+ http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/3903/focus=4126
+
+* Be nice to translators. Don't change translatable strings if you
+ can avoid it. If you must rearrange individual lines (e.g., in
+ multi-line --help strings), extract and create new strings, rather
+ than extracting and moving into existing blocks. This avoids
+ making unnecessary work for translators.
diff --git a/doc/FAQ b/doc/FAQ
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+++ b/doc/FAQ
@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+Why does "ps -aux" complain about a bogus '-'?
+
+ According to the POSIX and UNIX standards, the above command asks to
+ display all processes with a TTY (generally the commands users are
+ running) plus all processes owned by a user named "x". If that user
+ doesn't exist, then ps will assume you really meant "ps aux". The
+ warning is given to gently break you of a habit that will cause you
+ trouble if a user named "x" were created.
+
+Why don't I see SMP (per-CPU) stats in top?
+
+ You didn't enable it. Press '?' for built-in help or read the man
+ page. Per-CPU stats are disabled by default because they take up too
+ much space. Some Linux systems have hundreds of CPUs.
+
+Why do long usernames get printed as numbers?
+
+ The UNIX and POSIX standards require that user names and group names
+ be printed as decimal integers when there is not enough room in the
+ column. Truncating the names, besides being a violation of the
+ standard, would lead to confusion between names like MichelleRichards
+ and MichelleRichardson. The UNIX and POSIX way to change column
+ width is to rename the column:
+
+ ps -o pid,user=CumbersomeUserNames -o comm
+
+ The easy way is to directly specify the desired width:
+
+ ps -o pid,user:19,comm
+
+Why is %CPU underreported for multi-threaded (Java, etc.) apps?
+
+ You need to upgrade to the 2.6.10 kernel at least. Older kernels do
+ not provide a reasonable way to get this information.
+
+Why do ps and top show threads individually?
+
+ The 2.4.xx kernel does not provide proper support for grouping
+ threads by process. Hacks exist to group them anyway, but such hacks
+ will falsely group similar tasks and will fail to group tasks due to
+ race conditions. The hacks are also slow. As none of this is
+ acceptable in a critical system tool, task grouping is not currently
+ available for the 2.4.xx kernel. The 2.6.xx kernel allows for proper
+ thread grouping and reporting. To take advantage of this, your
+ programs must use a threading library that features the CLONE_THREAD
+ flag. The NPTL pthreads provided by recent glibc releases use
+ CLONE_THREAD.
+
+What systems are supported?
+
+ Linux 2.4.xx 2.6.xx and 3.xx are commonly tested and expected to work
+ well. SMP is well supported. Multi-node cluster views require a
+ multi-node /proc filesystem; without that you will see a single-node
+ view.
+
+Where to I send bug reports?
+
+ You may use the Debian bug tracking system or send your report to
+ procps@freelists.org (no subscription required) instead.
+
+Why are there so many procps projects?
+
+ The original maintainer seems to have had little time for procps.
+ Whatever his reasons, the project didn't get maintained. Starting in
+ 1997, Albert Cahalan wrote a new ps program for the package. For the
+ next few years, Albert quietly helped the Debian package maintainer
+ fix bugs. In 2001, Rik van Riel decided to do something about what
+ appeared to be the lack of a maintainer. He picked up the buggy old
+ code in Red Hat's CVS and started adding patches. Meanwhile, other
+ people have patched procps in a great many ways.
+
+ In 2002, Albert moved procps to http://procps.sourceforge.net. This
+ was done to ensure that years of testing and bug fixes would not be
+ lost. The major version number was changed to 3, partly to avoid
+ confusing users and partly because the top program had been redone.
+
+ After development essentially stopped on sourceforge.net, in 2011 the
+ project found a new home at http://gitorious.org/procps. This
+ represents the Debian, Fedora and openSUSE fork of procps. To avoid
+ confusion and potential name clashes the package is now known as
+ procps-ng (next generation), the version number was raised to 3.3.0
+ and the library so-name changed to libprocps.so
+
+What is being done to procps-ng at its new home?
+
+ All programs are in the process of being modernized, both in terms of
+ coding style and supporting documentation. Autotools have been
+ integrated and the library API has been expanded with many new fields
+ supported such as control groups, supplementary groups, etc. The top
+ program has been rewritten offering many new capabilities while
+ providing performance improvements up to 300%.
+
+Why does ps get signal 17?
+
+ No ps release has ever had this problem. Most likely your system has
+ been broken into. You might want to install a more recent version of
+ the OS. If you'd rather take your chances, simply upgrade procps.
diff --git a/doc/TODO b/doc/TODO
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2611b28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/TODO
@@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
+-------------------------- general ------------------------
+
+Consider using glibc obstacks for memory allocation.
+
+Implement /usr/proc/bin tools like Solaris has.
+The prstat command is interesting, like top in batch mode.
+SCO has a pstat command.
+
+Don't these really belong in the procps-ng package?
+ killall pstree fuser lsof who
+(they are maintained elsewhere, which causes version problems)
+
+OpenBSD has a pfind command.
+
+Cache results of dev_to_tty.
+
+---------------------- kernel -------------------------
+
+Add an "adopted child" flag to mark processes that are not
+natural children of init. This can make --forest work better.
+
+Supply better data for top's CPU state display. Currently top has
+to subtract old numbers from new numbers and divide that result by
+the number of processors. The kernel won't even supply the number
+of processors in a portable way.
+
+Supply data for the ADDR and JOBC fields.
+
+Support & supply data for SL and RE.
+
+Add a /proc/*/tty symlink to eliminate guessing when /proc/*/fd is
+not accessible.
+
+Add /proc/*/.bindata files to avoid string parsing. It should be an array
+of 64-bit values on all machines. New entries go on the end and obsolete
+ones get filled in with something logical -- entries must never be deleted!
+
+Add all the stuff Solaris has. This would also replace ptrace.
+
+---------------------- watch --------------------------
+
+Tolerate VT100 line-drawing characters. Maybe translate them.
+
+---------------------- w --------------------------
+
+The LOGIN@ column sometimes has a space in it. This makes correct
+scripting difficult.
+
+Time formats are demented.
+
+---------------------- vmstat --------------------------
+
+Extract /proc/diskstats parsing from vmstat into libproc somewhere.
+
+--------------------- libproc ----------------------
+
+Stop storing fields with duplicate info (often different
+units: kB and pages, seconds and jiffies) in the proc_t struct.
+
+Use own readdir code (assembly language) because glibc sucks ass.
+
+---------------------- top -------------------------
+
+Share more stuff with ps.
+
+don't truncate long usernames
+
+have a --config option
+
+---------------- ps for now, maybe move to libproc ------------------
+
+With forest output and a tty named /dev/this_is_my_tty, the position
+of the command name gets messed up. (we print too many spaces) (fixed?)
+
+Fix missing stuff for these formats: FB_j FB_l FB_v HP_f HP_l HP_fl JFMT OL_m
+(jobc,cpu,sl,re,cpu,prmgrp,m_swap,m_share,vm_lib,m_dt)
+Note that "cpu" has two meanings.
+
+Add Beowulf support. This is ugly, since the current patches use a
+daemon to collect info and add a HOST field after the PID field.
+
+Query optimizer, put cheap/required process selection first.
+
+Avoid reading both /proc/*/status and /proc/*/stat.
+
+Support printing the client hostname (the FROM that w(1) uses) in place
+of a pty.
+
+Disambiguate narrow tty info. (/dev/tty7 == /dev/pts/7 now)
+1------8 1--4
+ttyS2 S2
+ttyI31 I31
+pts/7 7 Short form could be /999.
+pts/9999 9999 Short form could just be trunctuated to /999.
+tty7 7 Short form could be vc-7.
+tty63 63 Short form could be vc63.
+
+Internationalization, as specified by XPG3, Volume 1, Commands and Utilities.
+(and suggested by Unix98) LC_TIME affects date format.
+
+----------------------- ps -----------------------
+
+Add an option to select all processes that a user can kill.
+(related to RUID, EUID, tty, etc. -- but maybe ignore root power)
+
+Add a nice display option for killing things.
+ruser,euser,ppid,pid,pmem,stime,args
+
+For RT stuff:
+pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,psr,pcpu,stat,wchan:14,comm
+
+For job control:
+stat,euid,ruid,tty,tpgid,sess,pgrp,ppid,pid,pcpu,comm
+
+Make the column alignment algorithm support this:
+ FOO BAR
+ 8 44444
+ 453 45
+ 45 2989
+ 63666 0
+ 34 333
+(useful for the UNIX tty and time values, since the time might look
+like 100-10:40:32 for old processes and the tty might have extra room)
+
+Improve long sort/format specifiers documentation and fill in the missing
+code as much as the kernel can support. Make sure that memory amounts are in
+pages when they should be and in kB when they should be, not backwards.
+
+output encoding: UTF8 --nul --null
+
+Make BSD formats use non-standard BSD time format, at least when it
+doesn't violate the "no whitespace" rule.
+
+Better unmangling of '?' as a tty. The shell destroys '?' when there
+is a filename that matches. If the argument seems like garbage,
+check for a file that might have screwed up the '?'.
+
+If the 'O' option is given something already implied by 'O',
+assume the user wanted a sorting option.
+
+Conflict:
+Digital THREAD is user,pcpu,pri,scnt,wchan,usertime,systime
+AIX THREAD is uname,pid,ppid,tid,S,C,PRI,scount,WCHAN,F,tty,bnd,comm
+AIX looks like this:
+ USER PID PPID TID S C PRI SC WCHAN FLAG TTY BND CMD
diff --git a/doc/bugs.md b/doc/bugs.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..71c48b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/bugs.md
@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+BUG REPORTS
+===========
+
+The following is information for reporting bugs. Please read
+the file as well as the documentation for the relevant program
+before posting. This document is more useful for advanced users
+and the people that package for the distributions.
+
+Also if you are an end-user of the programs and not the packager
+and are using a distribution, check their bug tracker first,
+you may find its a known bug already.
+
+
+Where to send
+-------------
+You can raise issues on the GitLab issues tracker which is
+located at https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/issues You
+will need a GitLab login to do so.
+
+Alternatively send comments, bug reports, patches, etc.
+to the email list procps@freelists.org
+
+What to send
+------------
+It is much more useful to us if a program really crashes to recompile it
+with make `CFLAGS=-ggdb -O`, run it with `gdb prog` and `run` and send
+me a stack trace (`bt` command). That said, any bug report is still
+better than none.
+
+strace and ltrace output are very helpful:
+
+> strace -o output-file ps --blah
+> bzip2 output-file
+
+The output of `ps --info` is often quite useful, even if the problem
+is not with ps itself. A lot of the utilities use the same library.
+
+Merge Requests
+--------------
+Merge requests are fine to use and give a central place for
+everyone involved to have a look. Merge requests are found
+on GitLab at https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/merge_requests
+It is best to follow up your merge request with an email to
+the list saying what you have done.
+
+Patches
+-------
+While merge requests are preferred, patches are also welcome.
+Get latest version of the source from upstream git.
+
+> git clone git@gitlab.com:procps-ng/procps.git
+
+and use `git format-patch` format. It is fine to attach patches as
+compressed tar balls. When you are about to send very large number
+of patches consider setting up your personal clone, and send a pull
+request.
+
+> git request-pull commit-id \
+> git://gitorious.org/~yourlogin/procps/your-clone.git
+
+
+Kernel-Dependent Patches
+------------------------
+If you send patches which are specific to *running* with a particular
+kernel version of /proc, please condition them with the runtime determined
+variable `linux_version_code` from libproc/version.c. It is the same
+number as the macro `LINUX_VERSION_CODE` for which the kernel /proc fs
+code was compiled.
+
+A macro is provide in libproc/misc.h to construct the code from its
+components, e.g.
+> if (linux_version_code < LINUX_VERSION(2,5,41))
+> /* blah blah blah */
+A startup call to `set_linux_version` may also be necessary.
+
+Of course, if a bug is due to a change in kernel file formats, it would
+be best to first try to generalize the parsing, since the code is then
+more resilient against future change.
+
+Code Structure
+--------------
+A goal is to encapsulate *all* parsing dependent on /proc
+file formats into the libproc library. If the API is general enough
+it can hopefully stabilize and then /proc changes might only require
+updating libproc.so. Beyond that having the set of utilities be simple
+command lines parsers and output formatters and encapsulating all kernel
+divergence in libproc is the way to go.
+
+Hence if you are submitting a new program or are fixing an old one, keep
+in mind that adding files to libproc which encapsulate such things is
+more desirable than patching the actual driver program. (well, except
+to move it toward the API of the library).
diff --git a/doc/libproc.supp b/doc/libproc.supp
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/libproc.supp
@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+#
+# This is a warning-suppression file for valgrind supplied by libproc
+# to be used with the option: --suppressions=<path-for>/libproc.supp.
+#
+# Memory leak warnings will only be encountered when a multi-threaded
+# program has called the 'procps_pids' interface. That's because this
+# library employs heap based memory in a thread safe manner. However,
+# such memory will not be freed until the address space is reclaimed.
+#
+# When a sibling thread using this 'procps_pids' API ends, or if some
+# other thread in that address space calls 'pthread_cancel()' on such
+# a thread, valgrind will warn that some memory is 'definitely lost'.
+#
+# The majority of warnings depend on the 'pids_item' enumerators that
+# have been specified using 'procps_pids_new' or 'procps_pids_reset'.
+#
+# Single-threaded applications will not experience any such warnings.
+#
+
+## always present 'definitely lost' warnings
+# 2 blocks of 128k each
+{
+ HEAP_BASED_TLS_startup
+ Memcheck:Leak
+ ...
+ fun:openproc
+}
+
+## for most of the 'definitely lost' warnings
+# up to 4 blocks ranging from 1024 to 2048 bytes each
+{
+ HEAP_BASED_TLS_input
+ Memcheck:Leak
+ ...
+ fun:file2str
+}
+
+## additional potential 'definitely lost' warnings
+# 48 bytes for each user
+{
+ HEAP_BASED_TLS_users
+ Memcheck:Leak
+ ...
+ fun:pwcache_get_user
+}
+# 48 bytes for each group
+{
+ HEAP_BASED_TLS_groups
+ Memcheck:Leak
+ ...
+ fun:pwcache_get_group
+}
+# 40 bytes for each tty
+{
+ HEAP_BASED_TLS_terminals
+ Memcheck:Leak
+ ...
+ fun:dev_to_tty
+}
+
+## remaining potential 'definitely lost' warnings
+# 16 bytes + sizeof name for each lxc container
+{
+ HEAP_BASED_TLS_lxc
+ Memcheck:Leak
+ ...
+ fun:lxc_containers
+}
+
+## in case an installed library has been stripped,
+## this will embrace all of the above warning categories
+{
+ HEAP_BASED_TLS_library
+ Memcheck:Leak
+ ...
+ obj:/usr/*lib*/libproc*
+ obj:/usr/local/*lib*/libproc*
+}