Using the /proc Filesystem to Examine Your Linux Inner Working

“Quick – answer me this: How much swap space is in use on
your system right now? How big is the cache on your CPU? What
kernel modules are currently loaded? How many total drives and
partitions are you running? If you’re running Linux, all these
questions (and a whole lot more) can be answered one easy way: take
a look in /proc. It’s a goldmine of system information, just
waiting to be retrieved by users, administrators, and scripts. In
this guide we’ll take a trip through /proc to see just what
valuable system information you’ve been missing out on. About
/proc

“Probably the most important thing to understand about /proc is
that it’s not a normal directory with normal files. It’s more like
a viewscreen into the system internals. Files in this directory are
not read and saved to the hard drive like your average document or
MP3, they’re generated by the Linux kernel on the fly. Accessing
the file /proc/meminfo will likely give you different results each
time, because memory usage is nearly always fluctuating.”

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