xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/gen/setproctitle.3 (revision 0675e24de037a1fd5075de616d9281bb11f820f4)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1995 Peter Wemm <peter@freebsd.org>
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice immediately at the beginning of the file, without modification,
9.\"    this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer.
10.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
11.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
12.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
13.\" 3. This work was done expressly for inclusion into FreeBSD.  Other use
14.\"    is permitted provided this notation is included.
15.\" 4. Absolutely no warranty of function or purpose is made by the author
16.\"    Peter Wemm.
17.\" 5. Modifications may be freely made to this file providing the above
18.\"    conditions are met.
19.\"
20.\" $FreeBSD$
21.\"
22.\" The following requests are required for all man pages.
23.Dd December 16, 1995
24.Os FreeBSD
25.Dt SETPROCTITLE 3
26.Sh NAME
27.Nm setproctitle
28.Nd set the process title for
29.Xr ps 1
30.Sh SYNOPSIS
31.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
32.Fd #include <libutil.h>
33.Ft void
34.Fn setproctitle "const char *fmt" "..."
35.Pp
36Link with
37.Va -lutil
38on the
39.Xr cc 1
40command line.
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42The
43.Fn setproctitle
44library routine sets the process title that appears on the
45.Xr ps 1
46command.
47.Pp
48The title is set from the executable's name, followed by the
49result of a
50.Xr printf 3
51style expansion of the arguments as specified by the
52.Va fmt
53argument.
54.Pp
55If
56.Va fmt
57is NULL, the process title is restored.
58.Sh EXAMPLES
59To set the title on a daemon to indicate its activity:
60.Bd -literal -offset indent
61setproctitle("talking to %s", inet_ntoa(addr));
62.Ed
63.Sh SEE ALSO
64.Xr ps 1 ,
65.Xr w 1 ,
66.Xr kvm 3 ,
67.Xr kvm_getargv 3 ,
68.Xr printf 3
69.Sh STANDARDS
70.Fn setproctitle
71is implicitly non-standard.  Other methods of causing the
72.Xr ps 1
73command line to change, including copying over the argv[0] string are
74also implicitly non-portable.  It is preferable to use an operating system
75supplied
76.Fn setproctitle
77if present.
78.Pp
79Unfortunately, it is possible that there are other calling conventions
80to other versions of
81.Fn setproctitle ,
82although none have been found by the author as yet.  This is believed to be
83the predominant convention.
84.Pp
85It is thought that the implementation is compatible with other systems,
86including
87.Nx
88and
89.Tn BSD/OS .
90.Sh HISTORY
91.Fn setproctitle
92first appeared in
93.Fx 2.2 .
94Other operating systems have
95similar functions.
96.Sh AUTHORS
97.An Peter Wemm Aq peter@FreeBSD.org
98stole the idea from the
99.Sy "Sendmail 8.7.3"
100source code by
101.An Eric Allman Aq eric@sendmail.org .
102