fuser(ADM)

fuser -- identify processes using a file or filesystem

Syntax

/etc/fuser [ -ku ] pathname ... | filesystem ... | host:filesystem ... | server:volume ... [

... ]

Description

The fuser command reports the IDs of processes that are using the file pathnames, local filesystems, or remote filesystems specified as arguments.

The pathnames may refer to files or directories on local filesystems, or on mounted NFS and NUCFS filesystems. fuser reports all processes using files with the specified pathnames.

A local filesystem may be specified by its block-special device (such as /dev/root or /dev/u). fuser reports all processes using any file within the filesystem mounted on that device.

An NFS filesystem is specified as host:filesystem. This should be the same as the mounted filesystem reported by mount(ADM) when run with no arguments. host is the hostname of the machine serving the filesystem. The specified filesystem path must start with ``/''. fuser reports all processes using any file within the mounted NFS filesystem.

An NUCFS filesystem is specified as server:volume. This should be the same as the mounted volume reported by mount when run with no arguments. server is the hostname of the NetWare^® server that holds the volume. The specified volume must not start with ``/''. fuser reports all processes using any file within the mounted NUCFS filesystem.

fuser prints the process IDs as a single line on the standard output. The process IDs are separated by spaces and terminated with a single new line. All other output is written on the standard error output.

fuser may display one of the following code letters after each process ID:

c: process is using the file as its current directory
r: process is using the file as its root directory
t: file is the text image of a running process

fuser does not show a code if the process has opened the file normally.

fuser accepts the following options:

-k: Send the SIGKILL signal to each process. Since this option spawns kills for each process, the kill messages may not show up immediately (see kill(S)).
-u: Display the user login name, in parentheses, following the process ID.

If more than one group of files are specified, the options may be respecified for each additional group of files. A single dash (

) cancels the options currently in force; any options following the dash apply to the next group of files.

Limitations

Only root can terminate another user's process.

Authorization

Only users such as root (with permission to read /dev/kmem and /dev/mem) can use fuser.

For NUCFS filesystems, root must be authenticated to the specified NetWare server. See nwlogin(NWG) for more details.

Files