Check how many file descriptors a process has open (BASH)

Category: BASH

You can check which files a process has open using lsof, but sometimes during troubleshooting you just weant to know how many file descriptors a process has open.

That information can trivially be gleaned from /proc

Details

  • Language: BASH

Snippet

# Enter your process name here
process_name=""

# Find all PIDs with that name
PROCESSES=$(pidof $process_name)
for PID in $PROCESSES
do
    echo "Pid $PID: `ls /proc/$PID/fd | wc -l`"
done

Usage Example

# Enter your process name here
process_name="nginx"

# Find all PIDs with that name
PROCESSES=$(pidof $process_name)
for PID in $PROCESSES
do
    echo "Pid $PID: `ls /proc/$PID/fd | wc -l`"
done