Linux – How to find other end of unix socket connection

dbuslinuxnetstatsocketunix

I have a process (dbus-daemon) which has many open connection over UNIX sockets. One of these connections is fd #36:

=$ ps uw -p 23284
USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
depesz   23284  0.0  0.0  24680  1772 ?        Ss   15:25   0:00 /bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session

=$ ls -l /proc/23284/fd/36 
lrwx------ 1 depesz depesz 64 2011-03-28 15:32 /proc/23284/fd/36 -> socket:[1013410]

=$ netstat -nxp | grep 1013410
(Not all processes could be identified, non-owned process info
 will not be shown, you would have to be root to see it all.)
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1013410  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD

=$ netstat -nxp | grep dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1013953  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1013825  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1013726  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1013471  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1013410  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1012325  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1012302  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1012289  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1012151  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011957  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011937  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011900  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011775  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011771  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011769  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011766  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011663  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011635  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011627  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011540  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011480  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011349  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011312  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011284  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011250  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011231  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011155  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011061  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011049  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011035  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1011013  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1010961  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     1010945  23284/dbus-daemon   @/tmp/dbus-3XDU4PYEzD

Based on number connections, I assume that dbus-daemon is actually server. Which is OK. But how can I find which process is connected to it – using the connection that is 36th file handle in dbus-launcher? Tried lsof and even greps on /proc/net/unix but I can't figure out a way to find the client process.

Best Answer

Quite recently I stumbled upon a similar problem. I was shocked to find out that there are cases when this might not be possible. I dug up a comment from the creator of lsof (Vic Abell) where he pointed out that this depends heavily on unix socket implementation. Sometimes so called "endpoint" information for socket is available and sometimes not. Unfortunatelly it is impossible in Linux as he points out.

On Linux, for example, where lsof must use /proc/net/unix, all UNIX domain sockets have a bound path, but no endpoint information. Often there is no bound path. That often makes it impossible to determine the other endpoint, but it is a result of the Linux /proc file system implementation.

If you look at /proc/net/unix you can see for yourself, that (at least on my system) he is absolutelly right. I'm still shocked, because I find such feature essential while tracking server problems.

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