topic Re: Getting detailed process info in C program in Operating System - HP-UX

Getting detailed process info in C program

savage54 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 16:33:35 GMT

Hello,

First post here, so if I'm in the wrong location, please redirect me to the correct one.

Our system is an older PA-RISC 9000/800 rp4440 running 64 bit HP-UX 11.31.

I am trying to locate the system calls that provide access to the detailed process information that 'ps' displays. I have found the getpid() and getppid() calls, but those only provide PID and parent PID. I'm wanting to see additional information such as the userid associated with the PID and/or PPID, as well as the extended command line that a process, or its parent, or its grandparent is executing.

I understand that some (all?) of these calls might require elevated privileges. That is not a problem, the C program that I'm writing will be able to do setresuid() to root if necessary prior to executing the calls to get this information.

I know the correct system calls must be out there somewhere, probably in section 2 or maybe section 3 of the man pages, but I haven't spotted them yet. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Getting detailed process info in C program

Bertram Stoeckler — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 16:46:23 GMT

I think the pstat(2) man page will help.

You can also use the "tusc" command to trace the system calls of a process.

E.g. "tusc -o /tmp/ps_tusc.txt ps"

This will run "ps" and trace the system-calls into /tmp/ps_tusc.txt".

Hope that helps.

Re: Getting detailed process info in C program

savage54 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 17:27:35 GMT

Thank you. I will look into the pstat() family of calls.

And thank you also for the tusc command. I was familiar with strace on Linux and was surprised that I couldn't find an equivalent in HP-UX. I tried to run 'man tusc' and got a 'No manual entry for tusc.' Can you tell me what section of man it would normally be in? Or where I might find it on the system?

Thanks.

Re: Getting detailed process info in C program

Bertram Stoeckler — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 17:38:44 GMT

I think the tusc-tool was never part of the official OS. Not sure.

You can download it from :

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Sysadmin/tusc-8.1/

Re: Getting detailed process info in C program

savage54 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 22:29:52 GMT

I'll have to look into the tusc utility.

But the pstat_*() system calls is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the help.