pidof(8)

NAME

   pidof -- find the process ID of a running program.

SYNOPSIS

   pidof    [-s]    [-c]   [-n]   [-x]   [-o   omitpid[,omitpid..]]    [-o
   omitpid[,omitpid..]..]  program [program..]

DESCRIPTION

   Pidof finds the process id's (pids) of the named  programs.  It  prints
   those id's on the standard output. This program is on some systems used
   in run-level change scripts, especially when the system has a  System-V
   like   rc  structure.  In  that  case  these  scripts  are  located  in
   /etc/rc?.d, where ? is the runlevel. If the system  has  a  start-stop-
   daemon (8) program that should be used instead.

OPTIONS

   -s     Single shot - this instructs the program to only return one pid.

   -c     Only  return  process  ids  that  are running with the same root
          directory.  This option is ignored for non-root users,  as  they
          will  be unable to check the current root directory of processes
          they do not own.

   -n     Avoid stat(2) system function call on  all  binaries  which  are
          located  on  network  based  file  systems like NFS.  Instead of
          using this option the the variable PIDOF_NETFS may  be  set  and
          exported.

   -x     Scripts  too  -  this  causes the program to also return process
          id's of shells running the named scripts.

   -o omitpid
          Tells pidof to omit processes with that process id. The  special
          pid  %PPID  can  be used to name the parent process of the pidof
          program, in other words the calling shell or shell script.

EXIT STATUS

   0      At least one program was found with the requested name.

   1      No program was found with the requested name.

NOTES

   pidof is actually the same program as  killall5;  the  program  behaves
   according to the name under which it is called.

   When  pidof  is  invoked  with a full pathname to the program it should
   find the pid of, it is reasonably safe. Otherwise it is  possible  that
   it  returns  pids of running programs that happen to have the same name
   as the program you're after but are actually other programs. Note  that
   that  the  executable  name  of  running  processes  is calculated with
   readlink(2), so symbolic links to executables will also match.

SEE ALSO

   shutdown(8), init(8), halt(8), reboot(8), killall5(8)

AUTHOR

   Miquel van Smoorenburg, [email protected]

                              01 Sep 1998                         PIDOF(8)

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