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