Redirect STDERR / STDOUT of a process AFTER it’s been started, using command line?

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Short of closing and reopening your tty (i.e. logging off and back on, which may also terminate some of your background processes in the process) you only have one choice left:

  • attach to the process in question using gdb, and run:
    • p dup2(open(“/dev/null”, 0), 1)
    • p dup2(open(“/dev/null”, 0), 2)
    • detach
    • quit

e.g.:

$ tail -f /var/log/lastlog &
[1] 5636

$ ls -l /proc/5636/fd
total 0
lrwx------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 0 -> /dev/pts/0
lrwx------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 1 -> /dev/pts/0
lrwx------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 2 -> /dev/pts/0
lr-x------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 3 -> /var/log/lastlog

$ gdb -p 5636
GNU gdb 6.8-debian
Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "x86_64-linux-gnu".
Attaching to process 5636
Reading symbols from /usr/bin/tail...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
Reading symbols from /lib/librt.so.1...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/librt.so.1
Reading symbols from /lib/libc.so.6...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libc.so.6
Reading symbols from /lib/libpthread.so.0...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
[New Thread 0x7f3c8f5a66e0 (LWP 5636)]
Loaded symbols for /lib/libpthread.so.0
Reading symbols from /lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2

(no debugging symbols found)
0x00007f3c8eec7b50 in nanosleep () from /lib/libc.so.6

(gdb) p dup2(open("/dev/null",0),1)
[Switching to Thread 0x7f3c8f5a66e0 (LWP 5636)]
$1 = 1

(gdb) p dup2(open("/dev/null",0),2)
$2 = 2

(gdb) detach
Detaching from program: /usr/bin/tail, process 5636

(gdb) quit

$ ls -l /proc/5636/fd
total 0
lrwx------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 0 -> /dev/pts/0
lrwx------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 1 -> /dev/null
lrwx------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 2 -> /dev/null
lr-x------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 3 -> /var/log/lastlog
lr-x------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 4 -> /dev/null
lr-x------ 1 myuser myuser 64 Feb 27 07:36 5 -> /dev/null

You may also consider:

  • using screen; screen provides several virtual TTYs you can switch between without having to open new SSH/telnet/etc, sessions
  • using nohup; this allows you to close and reopen your session without losing any background processes in the… process.

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