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authorjohn stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com>2009-12-14 18:00:05 -0800
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2009-12-15 08:53:24 -0800
commit4614a696bd1c3a9af3a08f0e5874830a85b889d4 (patch)
tree0b363d89ce612ab8557d49ab8b0f49b8520ffa66 /Documentation
parent7e1e0ef22c9ba9f797d7c4448feee722584bba5c (diff)
procfs: allow threads to rename siblings via /proc/pid/tasks/tid/comm
Setting a thread's comm to be something unique is a very useful ability and is helpful for debugging complicated threaded applications. However currently the only way to set a thread name is for the thread to name itself via the PR_SET_NAME prctl. However, there may be situations where it would be advantageous for a thread dispatcher to be naming the threads its managing, rather then having the threads self-describe themselves. This sort of behavior is available on other systems via the pthread_setname_np() interface. This patch exports a task's comm via proc/pid/comm and proc/pid/task/tid/comm interfaces, and allows thread siblings to write to these values. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: cleanups] Signed-off-by: John Stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com> Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org> Cc: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org> Cc: Mike Fulton <fultonm@ca.ibm.com> Cc: Sean Foley <Sean_Foley@ca.ibm.com> Cc: Darren Hart <dvhltc@us.ibm.com> Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt9
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
index 94b9f2056f4c..220cc6376ef8 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ Table of Contents
3.3 /proc/<pid>/io - Display the IO accounting fields
3.4 /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter - Core dump filtering settings
3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
+ 3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -1409,3 +1410,11 @@ For more information on mount propagation see:
Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt
+
+3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
+--------------------------------------------------------
+These files provide a method to access a tasks comm value. It also allows for
+a task to set its own or one of its thread siblings comm value. The comm value
+is limited in size compared to the cmdline value, so writing anything longer
+then the kernel's TASK_COMM_LEN (currently 16 chars) will result in a truncated
+comm value.