NAME

       /proc/pid/exe - symbolic link to program pathname

DESCRIPTION

       /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)

Linux man-pages 6.9.1                              2024-05-02                                    proc_pid_exe(5)