Get Open Files

lsof is a powerful command, and provides a plethora of information about a running process. It can provide a list of all open files, including a stream, a network file or a regular file. When invoking the lsof command without any option it will list all open files belonging to all active processes on the system, while when invoking with the flags -c <process name> or -p <pid>, it returns the list of open files for the specified process. The man page shows various other options in detail.

Using lsof for an iOS application running with PID 2828, list various open files as shown below.

iPhone:~ root# lsof -p 2828
COMMAND  PID   USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF   NODE NAME
iOweApp 2828 mobile  cwd    DIR    1,2      864      2 /
iOweApp 2828 mobile  txt    REG    1,3   206144 189774 /private/var/containers/Bundle/Application/F390A491-3524-40EA-B3F8-6C1FA105A23A/iOweApp.app/iOweApp
iOweApp 2828 mobile  txt    REG    1,3     5492 213230 /private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/5AB3E437-9E2D-4F04-BD2B-972F6055699E/tmp/com.apple.dyld/iOweApp-6346DC276FE6865055F1194368EC73CC72E4C5224537F7F23DF19314CF6FD8AA.closure
iOweApp 2828 mobile  txt    REG    1,3    30628 212198 /private/var/preferences/Logging/.plist-cache.vqXhr1EE
iOweApp 2828 mobile  txt    REG    1,2    50080 234433 /usr/lib/libobjc-trampolines.dylib
iOweApp 2828 mobile  txt    REG    1,2   344204  74185 /System/Library/Fonts/AppFonts/ChalkboardSE.ttc
iOweApp 2828 mobile  txt    REG    1,2   664848 234595 /usr/lib/dyld
...

Resources¶

Man Page of lsof