show exe path of a process

fab1234 · 07-10-2008, 10:18 AM

hi
does anyone know how to show the path of the executable in addition to the command with the ps command. or maybe there isnt any connection beween the path and the process?
thanks
fab

smoked kipper · 07-10-2008, 10:56 AM

I don't think ps can give you the full path, but you can get it from /proc/<pid>/exe.

unSpawn · 07-10-2008, 10:57 AM

Depending on what you exactly want (examples?) it may be easier, more efficient, safer (just like find vs ls) to rely on other tools than 'ps' like 'pgrep' or 'lsof' or 'readlink -f /proc/$PID/exe' like smoked kipper already posted.

salasi · 07-10-2008, 11:49 AM

I'm not sure exactly what you want, but the man page for ps gives some options that might help (ps seems to list the path to some processes, but not all...I'm not sure on what basis it chooses the ones that it does):

So, you could try
ps -ef
ps -eLf
ps axms

all of which give some variant or another on information about the processes.

jiml8 · 07-10-2008, 08:41 PM

ps lists the command line that was entered. So if the command line had the full path to the command, then that is listed. Otherwise, not.

fab1234 · 07-11-2008, 06:39 AM

thanks a lot! i used
readlink -f /proc/$PID/exe

gloriajw · 10-08-2008, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fab1234

thanks a lot! i used
readlink -f /proc/$PID/exe

This did not work for me. It only showed me:

/bin/env

since I was running a script.

I had to do this:

cat /proc/$PID/cmdline

to get my answer.

~G~

jan61 · 10-12-2008, 09:12 AM

Moin,

Quote:

Originally Posted by gloriajw

...
cat /proc/$PID/cmdline

The -o option of ps can be used to get various process information:

Code:

ps -o cmd= -p $PID

Jan