Description of problem:

smem silently fails when invoked with --mappings or --user as non-root. i.e.:

$ smem -m
$ smem -u
$

but these commands work as expected when called by root. And 'smem', with no arguments, works for any user. The problem seems to be that the user doesn't have permission to e.g. /proc/1/smaps.

The naive solution is to 'continue' to the next pid rather than 'raise', as in the showpids() path, i.e.:

--- /usr/bin/smem       2011-02-16 22:26:56.000000000 +0000
+++ ./smem      2011-11-28 22:32:24.977732268 +0000
@@ -298,7 +298,7 @@ def maptotals(pids):
                     seen[name] = 1
                 totals[name] = t
         except:
-            raise
+            continue
     return totals
 
 def showmaps():
@@ -348,7 +348,7 @@ def usertotals(pids):
             if len(maps) == 0:
                 continue
         except:
-            raise
+            continue
         user = src.piduser(pid)
         if user not in totals:
             t = dict(size=0, rss=0, pss=0, shared_clean=0,


but there may be some subtlety I've missed.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

smem-1.0-2.fc16.noarch