Linux Administration Cookbook

/proc

/proc is the process information pseudo-filesystem found on most Linux systems (but not the BSDs).

It is the readable interface-to-kernel data structure, with some files that are writable, allowing for on-the-fly changes to be made to your running kernel.

Some useful files within this directory are the likes of /proc/cpuinfo, which, when queried, gives you all of the information the kernel knows about your CPU:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor    : 0vendor_id    : GenuineIntelcpu family    : 6model        : 142model name    : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHzstepping    : 9cpu MHz        : 2904.000cache size    : 4096 KBphysical id    : 0siblings    : 1core id        : 0cpu cores    : 1apicid        : 0initial apicid    : 0fpu        : yesfpu_exception    : yescpuid level    : 22wp        : yesflags : fpu ...