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fuser

psmisc package.

Determine which processes are using a device.

Can send signals to those processes.

Can determine TCP / UDP usage, much like netstat.

Basic usage:

fuser <path>

where path is a file or directory.

The output is of the form:

[<PID-1><access-types>+ ...]

where each type character is one of

  • c: current directory (a property of each process)
  • e: executable being run
  • f: open file. f is omitted in default display mode
  • F: open file for writing. F is omitted in default display mode
  • r: root directory (a property of each process)
  • m: mmaped file or shared library

Similar to lsof.

Examples

fuser /

Sample output:

/:                    1835r  1960rc  1971r [...]

So we see that:

  • process 1835 has root at /
  • process 1960 has both root and current directory at /

This command ends up listing most processes on my system, since most of them have root at /.

Now for a file access:

exec 3<> /tmp/foo
fuser /tmp/foo

Output:

/tmp/foo:            22924

Then close:

exec 3>&-
fuser /tmp/foo

And the output is empty.

Useful if you want to unmount a filesystem, and you have to find out who is still using it.

fuser .

You will have at least one process here: your bash

v

Also show program and user, saving you that ps aux:

fuser -v /

Sample output

                     USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
/:                   root     kernel mount /
                     ciro       1835 .r... init
                     ciro       1960 .rc.. dbus-daemon
                     ciro       1971 .r... upstart-event-b
                     ciro       1977 .r... window-stack-br

k

Send SIGKILL found processes. Use with caution!

n

Search in given domain instead of file paths.

Possible values:

  • tcp: TCP ports

Good combo with k to kill that pesky test server:

fuser -kv tcp 3000
fuser -kn tcp 3000