lsof stands for List Open Files. It is easy to remember lsof command if you think of it as "ls + of", where ls stands for list, and of stands for open files. It is a command line utility which is used to list the information about the files that are opened by various processes. In unix, everything is a file, ( pipes, sockets, directories, devices, etc.). So by using lsof, you can get the information about any opened files. 1. Introduction to lsof Simply typing lsof will provide a list of all open files belonging to all active processes. # lsof COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME init 1 root cwd DIR 8,1 4096 2 / init 1 root txt REG 8,1 124704 917562 /sbin/init init 1 root 0u CHR 1,3 0t0 4369 /dev/null init 1 root 1u CHR 1,3 0t0 4369 /dev/null init 1 root 2u CHR ...