setproctitle(3)

NAME

setproctitle - set process title

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void
setproctitle(const char *fmt, ...);

DESCRIPTION

The setproctitle() library routine sets the process title

that appears on
the ps(1) command.

The title is set from the executable's name, followed by the

result of a
printf(3) style expansion of the arguments as specified by

the fmt argument. If the fmt argument begins with a ``-'' character,

the executable's name is skipped.

If fmt is NULL, the process title is restored.

EXAMPLES

To set the title on a daemon to indicate its activity:

setproctitle("talking to %s", inet_ntoa(addr));

SEE ALSO

ps(1), w(1), kvm(3), kvm_getargv(3), printf(3)

STANDARDS

The setproctitle() function is implicitly non-standard.

Other methods of
causing the ps(1) command line to change, including copying

over the
argv[0] string are also implicitly non-portable. It is

preferable to use
an operating system supplied setproctitle() if present.

Unfortunately, it is possible that there are other calling

conventions to
other versions of setproctitle(), although none have been

found by the
author as yet. This is believed to be the predominant con

vention.

It is thought that the implementation is compatible with

other systems,
including NetBSD and BSD/OS.

HISTORY

The setproctitle() function first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.

Other operating systems have similar functions.

AUTHORS

Peter Wemm <peter@FreeBSD.org> stole the idea from the

Sendmail 8.7.3

source code by Eric Allman <eric@sendmail.org>.

BUGS

Never pass a string with user-supplied data as a format

without using
`%s'. An attacker can put format specifiers in the string

to mangle your
stack, leading to a possible security hole. This holds true

even if the
string was built using a function like snprintf(), as the

resulting
string may still contain user-supplied conversion specifiers

for later
interpolation by setproctitle().

Always use the proper secure idiom:

setproctitle("%s", string);

BSD December 16, 1995

BSD