# Linux Kernel Procfs Guide

Erik
(J.A.K.)
Mouw
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Information Technology and Systems

                J.A.K.Mouw@its.tudelft.nl
                PO BOX 5031
                2600 GA
                Delft
                The Netherlands

1.0
May 30, 2001
Initial revision posted to linux-kernel
1.1
June 3, 2001
Revised after comments from linux-kernel
2001
Erik Mouw

This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

For more details see the file COPYING in the source distribution of Linux.

## Preface

This guide describes the use of the procfs file system from within the Linux kernel. The idea to write this guide came up on the #kernelnewbies IRC channel (see http://www.kernelnewbies.org/), when Jeff Garzik explained the use of procfs and forwarded me a message Alexander Viro wrote to the linux-kernel mailing list. I agreed to write it up nicely, so here it is.

I'd like to thank Jeff Garzik jgarzik@pobox.com and Alexander Viro viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk for their input, Tim Waugh twaugh@redhat.com for his Selfdocbook, and Marc Joosen marcj@historia.et.tudelft.nl for proofreading.

This documentation was written while working on the LART computing board (http://www.lart.tudelft.nl/), which is sponsored by the Mobile Multi-media Communications (http://www.mmc.tudelft.nl/) and Ubiquitous Communications (http://www.ubicom.tudelft.nl/) projects.

Erik

## Introduction

The `/proc` file system (procfs) is a special file system in the linux kernel. It's a virtual file system: it is not associated with a block device but exists only in memory. The files in the procfs are there to allow userland programs access to certain information from the kernel (like process information in `/proc/[0-9]+/`), but also for debug purposes (like `/proc/ksyms`).

This guide describes the use of the procfs file system from within the Linux kernel. It starts by introducing all relevant functions to manage the files within the file system. After that it shows how to communicate with userland, and some tips and tricks will be pointed out. Finally a complete example will be shown.

Note that the files in `/proc/sys` are sysctl files: they don't belong to procfs and are governed by a completely different API described in the Kernel API book.

## Managing procfs entries

This chapter describes the functions that various kernel components use to populate the procfs with files, symlinks, device nodes, and directories.

A minor note before we start: if you want to use any of the procfs functions, be sure to include the correct header file! This should be one of the first lines in your code:

    #include <linux/proc_fs.h>

### Creating a regular file

    	  struct proc_dir_entry* create_proc_entry
    	  const char* name
    	  mode_t mode
    	  struct proc_dir_entry* parent

This function creates a regular file with the name `name`, file mode `mode` in the directory `parent`. To create a file in the root of the procfs, use `NULL` as `parent` parameter. When successful, the function will return a pointer to the freshly created struct proc_dir_entry; otherwise it will return `NULL`. describes how to do something useful with regular files.

Note that it is specifically supported that you can pass a path that spans multiple directories. For example `create_proc_entry`(`"drivers/via0/info"`) will create the `via0` directory if necessary, with standard `0755` permissions.

If you only want to be able to read the file, the function `create_proc_read_entry` described in may be used to create and initialise the procfs entry in one single call.

### Creating a symlink

    	  struct proc_dir_entry*
    	  proc_symlink const
    	  char* name
    	  struct proc_dir_entry*
    	  parent const
    	  char* dest

This creates a symlink in the procfs directory `parent` that points from `name` to `dest`. This translates in userland to `ln -s` `dest` `name`.

### Creating a directory

    	  struct proc_dir_entry* proc_mkdir
    	  const char* name
    	  struct proc_dir_entry* parent

Create a directory `name` in the procfs directory `parent`.

### Removing an entry

    	  void remove_proc_entry
    	  const char* name
    	  struct proc_dir_entry* parent

Removes the entry `name` in the directory `parent` from the procfs. Entries are removed by their name, not by the struct proc_dir_entry returned by the various create functions. Note that this function doesn't recursively remove entries.

Be sure to free the data entry from the struct proc_dir_entry before `remove_proc_entry` is called (that is: if there was some data allocated, of course). See for more information on using the data entry.

## Communicating with userland

Instead of reading (or writing) information directly from kernel memory, procfs works with call back functions for files: functions that are called when a specific file is being read or written. Such functions have to be initialised after the procfs file is created by setting the read_proc and/or write_proc fields in the struct proc_dir_entry* that the function `create_proc_entry` returned:

    struct proc_dir_entry* entry;

    entry->read_proc = read_proc_foo;
    entry->write_proc = write_proc_foo;

If you only want to use a the read_proc, the function `create_proc_read_entry` described in may be used to create and initialise the procfs entry in one single call.

### Reading data

The read function is a call back function that allows userland processes to read data from the kernel. The read function should have the following format:

    	  int read_func
    	  char* buffer
    	  char** start
    	  off_t off
    	  int count
    	  int* peof
    	  void* data

The read function should write its information into the `buffer`, which will be exactly `PAGE_SIZE` bytes long.

The parameter `peof` should be used to signal that the end of the file has been reached by writing `1` to the memory location `peof` points to.

The `data` parameter can be used to create a single call back function for several files, see .

The rest of the parameters and the return value are described by a comment in `fs/proc/generic.c` as follows:

> You have three ways to return data:

> 1. Leave `*start = NULL`. (This is the default.) Put the data of the requested offset at that offset within the buffer. Return the number (`n`) of bytes there are from the beginning of the buffer up to the last byte of data. If the number of supplied bytes (`= n - offset`) is greater than zero and you didn't signal eof and the reader is prepared to take more data you will be called again with the requested offset advanced by the number of bytes absorbed. This interface is useful for files no larger than the buffer.

> 2. Set `*start` to an unsigned long value less than the buffer address but greater than zero. Put the data of the requested offset at the beginning of the buffer. Return the number of bytes of data placed there. If this number is greater than zero and you didn't signal eof and the reader is prepared to take more data you will be called again with the requested offset advanced by `*start`. This interface is useful when you have a large file consisting of a series of blocks which you want to count and return as wholes. (Hack by Paul.Russell@rustcorp.com.au)

> 3. Set `*start` to an address within the buffer. Put the data of the requested offset at `*start`. Return the number of bytes of data placed there. If this number is greater than zero and you didn't signal eof and the reader is prepared to take more data you will be called again with the requested offset advanced by the number of bytes absorbed.

shows how to use a read call back function.

### Writing data

The write call back function allows a userland process to write data to the kernel, so it has some kind of control over the kernel. The write function should have the following format:

    	  int write_func
    	  struct file* file
    	  const char* buffer
    	  unsigned long count
    	  void* data

The write function should read `count` bytes at maximum from the `buffer`. Note that the `buffer` doesn't live in the kernel's memory space, so it should first be copied to kernel space with `copy_from_user`. The `file` parameter is usually ignored. shows how to use the `data` parameter.

Again, shows how to use this call back function.

### A single call back for many files

When a large number of almost identical files is used, it's quite inconvenient to use a separate call back function for each file. A better approach is to have a single call back function that distinguishes between the files by using the data field in struct proc_dir_entry. First of all, the data field has to be initialised:

    struct proc_dir_entry* entry;
    struct my_file_data *file_data;

    file_data = kmalloc(sizeof(struct my_file_data), GFP_KERNEL);
    entry->data = file_data;

The data field is a void *, so it can be initialised with anything.

Now that the data field is set, the `read_proc` and `write_proc` can use it to distinguish between files because they get it passed into their `data` parameter:

    int foo_read_func(char *page, char **start, off_t off,
                      int count, int *eof, void *data)
    {
            int len;

            if(data == file_data) {
                    /* special case for this file */
            } else {
                    /* normal processing */
            }

            return len;
    }

Be sure to free the data data field when removing the procfs entry.

## Tips and tricks

### Convenience functions

    	  struct proc_dir_entry* create_proc_read_entry
    	  const char* name
    	  mode_t mode
    	  struct proc_dir_entry* parent
    	  read_proc_t* read_proc
    	  void* data

This function creates a regular file in exactly the same way as `create_proc_entry` from does, but also allows to set the read function `read_proc` in one call. This function can set the `data` as well, like explained in .

### Modules

If procfs is being used from within a module, be sure to set the owner field in the struct proc_dir_entry to `THIS_MODULE`.

    struct proc_dir_entry* entry;

    entry->owner = THIS_MODULE;

### Mode and ownership

Sometimes it is useful to change the mode and/or ownership of a procfs entry. Here is an example that shows how to achieve that:

    struct proc_dir_entry* entry;

    entry->mode =  S_IWUSR |S_IRUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH;
    entry->uid = 0;
    entry->gid = 100;

## Example

&procfsexample;