Procstat

Procstat is a command-line utility name used on several Unix-like operating systems to report detailed information about running processes. It exists in variants for systems such as Solaris and FreeBSD, and in some environments as part of debugging or performance-analysis toolchains. While the core purpose is the same—exposing the state and resource usage of a process—the exact features and syntax differ between implementations.

Typical functionality includes displaying a process’s identity and attributes (PID, user, command), CPU usage, memory usage, and I/O statistics, as well as more granular data such as a process’s open file descriptors, memory mappings, threads, and locks. Some variants can inspect core dumps, provide stack traces, or show resource limits and signals. The tool is commonly used by system administrators and developers for troubleshooting performance problems, diagnosing resource leaks, or verifying process behavior.

Implementation notes: In Solaris, procstat is a core utility capable of examining a process or core file with subcommands that report on memory, files, text segments, and other aspects of a process. FreeBSD includes a procstat utility in its base system with multiple options to show files, memory, threads, and other process attributes. Linux systems typically rely on /proc-based tools (ps, pmap, lsof) rather than a single procstat binary; some environments may install procstat as part of ports/packages, but its behavior will reflect the OS’s process model. The availability and exact syntax of procstat features therefore vary by platform.