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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 argu-
     ment.  If the fmt argument begins with a ``-'' character, the exe-
     cutable'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 convention.

     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 operat-
     ing 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().

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