README

Process Finger is a PHP utility library for interacting with system processes. It provides a unified, cross-platform interface to retrieve process information, manage processes, and inspect system resources.

⚠️ Warning: This library can terminate processes and manipulate system resources. Use responsibly. Improper usage may cause data loss or system instability.

Features

• Get current process ID and parent process ID
• Retrieve process script paths and process names
• Check if a process exists or is running as root/admin
• Detect zombie processes
• Retrieve memory and CPU usage of processes
• List child processes of a given PID
• Kill, wait for, and restart processes
• Access environment variables of processes (Unix only)
• Fully compatible with Linux, macOS, BSD, and Windows (with limitations)

Installation

Via Composer:

composer require nabeghe/process-finger

Or manually include the ProcessFinger.php file in your project.

Usage

use Nabeghe\ProcessFinger;

// Get current PID
$pid = Process::getId();

// Check if a process exists
$exists = Process::exists($pid);

// Kill a process
Process::kill($pid, true);

// Restart a process
$newPid = Process::restart($pid, 'php script.php');

// Get memory usage
$memory = Process::getMemoryUsage($pid);

// Get CPU usage
$cpu = Process::getCpuUsage($pid);

// Get process environment (Unix only)
$env = Process::getProcessEnv($pid);

// List child processes
$children = Process::listChildren($pid);

// Get process name
$name = Process::getProcessName($pid);

// Check if running as root/admin
$isRoot = Process::isRunningAsRoot();

// Check if process is zombie
$isZombie = Process::isZombie($pid);

// Wait for process to exit
Process::wait($pid, 5); // Wait up to 5 seconds

Methods Overview

Security & Risks

• Process Termination: Misuse of kill() or restart() may terminate critical system processes. Always double-check PIDs before calling these methods.
• Privilege Checks: Running with root/admin privileges increases risk. Avoid using these methods on critical processes.
• Environment Variables: getProcessEnv() is only available on Unix-like systems. Accessing environment data may contain sensitive information.
• Zombie Detection: Only meaningful on Unix-like systems. Windows does not support zombie processes.
• Cross-Platform Differences: Some commands behave differently on Windows vs Linux/macOS. Always test on your target OS.

📖 License

Licensed under the MIT license, see LICENSE.md for details.