Unmounting proc file system

Question

As far as I know proc file system is a virtual file system. Is there any way to unmount the proc file system and even if I do that what will be the consequences after that.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 12 '11 at 17:14

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You can check (as root) who is using a mounted filesystem like so:

fuser -m /proc

Typically, your box will not be very usable if you kill all the processes using /proc. Otherwise, there is no law saying it has to be mounted, beyond all and sundry developer assuming that it is.

answered Mar 12 '11 at 17:14

Bittrance

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Actually, you can even do "fuser -mk /proc" to kill them. – Bittrance Mar 12 '11 at 17:16

Mat · Answer 2 · 2011-03-12T17:25:56.047

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umount will work like on any other file system (same conditions for a filesystem to be unmonted). You can expect a whole lot of this to stop working as soon as you do that though (including very simple utilities like ps).

edited Mar 12 '11 at 17:25

answered Mar 12 '11 at 17:13

Mat

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I think there is no command called **unmount**. There is only a command called **umount** – pradeepchhetri Mar 12 '11 at 17:25
Not always. A process that has hung in "D" state (during an I/O syscall essentially) cannot be killed. If you have a process like that hung on /proc, you won't be able to unmount it. Note that you should not unmount /proc anyway. – Mat Mar 12 '11 at 18:35

Unmounting proc file system

2 Answers2