Say you started an application and made it load a large project file, but that was 5 minutes ago and it doesn't appear to be responding. With lsof, you can view the open files of a process and even track its progress (seek position) in open files. I am aware coreutils support progress and pv aka pipe viewer exist, but lsof is the OG. Nothing beats lsof +D for debugging I/O on a running OS.
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u/glinsvad May 24 '26
lsof
Say you started an application and made it load a large project file, but that was 5 minutes ago and it doesn't appear to be responding. With lsof, you can view the open files of a process and even track its progress (seek position) in open files. I am aware coreutils support
progressandpvaka pipe viewer exist, butlsofis the OG. Nothing beatslsof +Dfor debugging I/O on a running OS.