29.2. List Of Open Files: lsof

To view a list of all the files which the process with process ID PID is keeping open, use the parameter -p. For example, to view all the files used by the current shell:

$ lsof -p $$
COMMAND  PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE    SIZE     NODE NAME
zsh     4694   jj  cwd    DIR   0,18     144 25487368 /suse/jj/t (totan:/real-home/jj)
zsh     4694   jj  rtd    DIR    3,2     608        2 /
zsh     4694   jj  txt    REG    3,2  441296    20414 /bin/zsh
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2  104484    10882 /lib/ld-2.3.3.so
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2   11648    20610 /usr/lib/zsh/4.2.0/zsh/rlimits.so
[...]
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2   13647    10891 /lib/libdl.so.2
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2   88036    10894 /lib/libnsl.so.1
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2  316410   147725 /lib/libncurses.so.5.4
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2  170563    10909 /lib/tls/libm.so.6
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2 1349081    10908 /lib/tls/libc.so.6
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2      56    12410 /usr/lib/locale/de_DE.utf8/LC_TELEPHONE
[...]
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2      59    14393 /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_NUMERIC
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2  178476    14565 /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_CTYPE
zsh     4694   jj  mem    REG    3,2   56444    20598 /usr/lib/zsh/4.2.0/zsh/computil.so
zsh     4694   jj    0u   CHR 136,48               50 /dev/pts/48
zsh     4694   jj    1u   CHR 136,48               50 /dev/pts/48
zsh     4694   jj    2u   CHR 136,48               50 /dev/pts/48
zsh     4694   jj   10u   CHR 136,48               50 /dev/pts/48

The special shell variable $$, whose value is the process ID of the shell, has been used.

The command lsof lists all the files currently open when used without any parameters. Usually a huge number of files will be open. To find out how many files are open, enter the following:

$ lsof | wc -l
3749

List of all the character devices used:

$ lsof | grep CHR
sshd       4685    root  mem    CHR    1,5             45833 /dev/zero
sshd       4685    root  mem    CHR    1,5             45833 /dev/zero
sshd       4693      jj  mem    CHR    1,5             45833 /dev/zero
sshd       4693      jj  mem    CHR    1,5             45833 /dev/zero
zsh        4694      jj    0u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48
zsh        4694      jj    1u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48
zsh        4694      jj    2u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48
zsh        4694      jj   10u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48
X          6476    root  mem    CHR    1,1             38042 /dev/mem
lsof      13478      jj    0u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48
lsof      13478      jj    2u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48
grep      13480      jj    1u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48
grep      13480      jj    2u   CHR 136,48                50 /dev/pts/48