Unix Proc Directory

Question

I am trying to find the virtual file that contains the current users id. I was told that I could find it in the proc directory, but not quite sure which file.

Answer 1

You actually want /proc/self/status, which will give you information about the currently executed process.

Here is an example:

$ cat /proc/self/status
Name:   cat
State:  R (running)
Tgid:   17618
Pid:    17618
PPid:   3083
TracerPid:      0
Uid:    500 500 500 500
Gid:    500 500 500 500
FDSize: 32
Groups: 10 488 500 
VmPeak:     4792 kB
VmSize:     4792 kB
VmLck:         0 kB
VmHWM:       432 kB
VmRSS:       432 kB
VmData:      156 kB
VmStk:        84 kB
VmExe:        32 kB
VmLib:      1532 kB
VmPTE:        24 kB
Threads:    1
SigQ:   0/32268
SigPnd: 0000000000000000
ShdPnd: 0000000000000000
SigBlk: 0000000000000000
SigIgn: 0000000000000000
SigCgt: 0000000000000000
CapInh: 0000000000000000
CapPrm: 0000000000000000
CapEff: 0000000000000000
Cpus_allowed:   00000003
Mems_allowed:   1
voluntary_ctxt_switches:    0
nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 3

You probably want to look at the first numbers on the Uid and Gid lines. You can look up which uid numbers map to what username by looking at /etc/passwd, or calling the relevant functions for mapping uid to username in whatever language you're using.

Ideally, you would just call the system call getuid() to look up this information, doing it by looking at /proc/ is counterproductive.