NAME

       forkstat - a tool to show process fork/exec/exit activity

SYNOPSIS

       forkstat [options]

DESCRIPTION

       Forkstat  is a program that logs process fork(), exec(), exit(), coredump and process name
       change activity.  It is useful for monitoring system behaviour and  to  track  down  rogue
       processes that are spawning off processes and potentially abusing the system.

       Note  that  forkstat  uses the Linux netlink connector to gather process activity and this
       may miss events if the system  is  overly  busy.  Netlink  connector  also  requires  root
       privilege.

       Forkstat will display several columns of process related information:

       Title      Description
       Time       When the fork/exec/exit event occurred.
       Event      Type of event.
       PID        Process or thread ID.
       Info       Parent or child if a fork, or process exit(2) value.
       Duration   On  exit,  the  duration  the  command  ran  for  in
                  seconds.
       Process    The process name. The name will be in [  ]  brackets
                  if it is a kernel thread.

OPTIONS

       forkstat options are as follow:

       -c     use  the  process  16 character comm field for the process name rather than command
              line information.

       -d     strip off the directory path from the process name.

       -D seconds
              specify duration in seconds to run forkstat.

       -e     specify events to trace as a comma separated list. By default the  fork,  exec  and
              exit events are traced. Available events are:

              Event   Description
              fork    forks
              exec    execs
              exit    exits
              core    core dumps
              comm    process name changes in comm field
              clone   clone (normally on thread creation)
              ptrce   ptrace attach or detach
              uid     uid/gid events
              sid     sid events
              all     all the events above

       -E     enable all events, equivalent to -e all

       -g     show  glyph  annotations  of  events, useful for easier identification of different
              events.

       -h     show brief help summary.

       -l     set stdout to line-buffered mode.

       -p pgrpid
              only show processes that match the process group id pgrpid

       -r     run with real time FIFO scheduling with maximum  priority  to  keep  up  with  high
              volumes of process events.

       -s     show short process name information.

       -S     show event statistics.

       -q     run quietly and enable the -S option.

       -x     show extra process related information: user ID and TTY of the process.

       -X     equivalent  to  options  -E  -g  -r  -S  -x,  all  events,  glyphs,  real time FIFO
              scheduling, statistics and extra process information.

EXAMPLES

       Show process activity with short process names and directory base path stripped off:
               forkstat -s -d

       Trace forks and core dumps only:
               forkstat -e fork,core

       Trace all events and print statistics at end:
               forkstat -e all -S

       Trace all events for 10 minutes:
               forkstat -E -D 600

       Trace clones for 1 minute:
               forkstat -e clone -D 60

SEE ALSO

       vmstat(8)

AUTHOR

       forkstat  was  written  by  Colin  Ian  King  <colin.i.king@gmail.com>.  Thanks  also  for
       contributions from Philipp Gesang.

       This  manual  page  was written by Colin Ian King <colin.i.king@gmail.com>, for the Ubuntu
       project (but may be used by others).

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2014-2021 Canonical Ltd, Copyright © 2021-2023 Colin Ian King.
       This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO  warranty;  not
       even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

                                         8 February 2023                              FORKSTAT(8)