findProcessOwner

An application which scans a list of given pids and determines the executing user.

Each line on stdout contains the result, either a username or a uid (if –uid is specified, or a username cannot be determined from a uid), or “unknown” on complete failure (like invalid PID).

Error messages are on the same line, but in stderr, such that any script can use the stdout result and simply check for “unknown” instead of needing to parse the errors.

Usage

Usage: findProcessOwner (options) [pid1] (optional: pid2, pid3)

Prints the owner (account running) processes, given their pids. They are returned one per line on stdout.

Any errors reported go to stderr. If no owner can be determined, stdout will contain “unknown” for that line.

Thus your program can always ensure parsable output by parsing stdout, one-entry per line, and checking for “unknown”.

If a username can not be determined (like user deleted, or uid changed, etc) a pid will be printed.

Options:

--uid Print the UID instead of the username

--version Print the version

Examples:

findProcessOwner 1234

findProcessOwner --uid 1234 3231

Return:

Returns zero if all searches were successful, otherwise non-zero.

Examples

Current shell user:

$] findProcessOwner $$

myuser

Three processes, two invalid:

$] findProcessOwner 12345 $$ 12233

unknown (Could not determine owner of pid 12345)

myuser

unknown (Could not determine owner of pid 12233)

Three processes, two invalid, stderr nullified:

$] findProcessOwner 12345 $$ 12233 2>/dev/null

unknown

myuser

unknown