Is it possible to find the path of a running program?

Question

I have a xmms2d process running, but two possible executable files (in different directories, both in the executable path) that could have spawned it. I suspect that one of those is corrupted, because sometimes this program works and sometimes it doesn't. The process running now works, so I want to delete (or rename) the other one.

ps ax|grep "xmms" returns 8505 ? SLl 2:38 xmms2d -v without path information. Given the PID, could I find whether it was run from /usr/bin/xmms2d or /usr/local/bin/xmms2d?

Thanks!

ps -C xmms should make your grep obsolete. – user unknown Mar 03 '11 at 05:02 — user unknown, Mar 03 '11 at 05:02

Mikel · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-03T01:21:22.510

23

Try this:

ls -l /proc/8505/exe

Or if you don't want to parse the output of ls, just do:

readlink /proc/8505/exe

or

realpath /proc/8505/exe

edited Mar 03 '11 at 01:21

answered Mar 02 '11 at 23:03

Mikel

57,299
15
134
153

jlliagre · Answer 2 · 2011-03-03T22:08:54.640

6

If you are running Solaris, the way is slightly different from the Linux one suggested:

$ for i in $(pgrep bash)
do
  printf "%6d %s\n" $i $(readlink /proc/$i/path/a.out)
done
   577 /usr/bin/bash
 11247 /usr/bin/bash
 13921 /usr/bin/bash
 13992 /tmp/bash

Should you want to know the current working directory of running processes, you can use:

pwdx $(pgrep xmms)

eg:

$ pwdx $(pgrep ksh)
2904: /home/jlliagre
2906: /home/jlliagre
3844: /tmp

edited Mar 03 '11 at 22:08

answered Mar 03 '11 at 07:23

jlliagre

61,204

(deleted my comment as it no longer applied after your edit:) – Kjetil Jorgensen Apr 08 '11 at 17:53

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '11 at 05:31

I start mousepad from the shell:

mousepad & 
[1] 24289

check, where it comes from:

which mousepad 
   /usr/bin/mousepad

start it with path:

/usr/bin/mousepad &

look via ps:

ps v -C mousepad 
  PID TTY      STAT   TIME  MAJFL   TRS   DRS   RSS %MEM COMMAND
24289 pts/3    S      0:00      3    62 85441 10964  1.0 mousepad
24292 pts/3    S      0:00      0    62 85433 10864  1.0 /usr/bin/mousepad

As we see, the one invoked without path is displayed without path, and started with the PATH, and therefore to be found by

which mousepad

Simple as that, isn't it? Wait! What if I start mousepad from the menu? Well, it might be specified with or without using the PATH settings. I tried. A normal start leads to a simple 'mousepad' in ps v -C. Since ~/bin is the first part of my PATH I create a dummy there, and, voila, the dummy is started from the menu.

But what if you start a program which deletes itself? Which will not find the deleted program and report a wrong one, if there is a second in the path.

So that's a race condition. If you know that your programs don't delete themselves or aren't moved while you're investigating their location, ps v -C NAME and which NAME should work pretty well.

Will this always work? Suppose I have an executable in two different directories and I run ./someexecutable in both? — apoorv020, Mar 03 '11 at 07:09
No, of course not, because both will show up as ./someexecutable or /bin/bash ./someexecutable — user unknown, Mar 03 '11 at 13:44

score -4 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 12 '13 at 11:15

-4

Go ahead and delete both the files (without force -f option). The file that gets deleted is the one, that was not running !!

System executable file locking will not allow you to delete any file that is currently under execution.

answered Dec 12 '13 at 11:15

Nirbhay

1

Your answer doesn't provide an real answer to the question. – Dec 12 '13 at 12:27
5

It is also wrong. You can delete running executables without issue. How do you think packages such as init, which are always running, get upgraded? You cannot modify a running executable. – phemmer Dec 12 '13 at 13:58
2

This is alarmingly wrong -- don't do this – Michael Mrozek Dec 12 '13 at 17:31

Is it possible to find the path of a running program?

4 Answers4