proc_cmdline(5)

📦

version 6.20 · 10 versions

6.20 · arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable (latest)
6.13 · opensuse-leap 16.0
6.06 · centos-stream 10
6.16 · alpine 3.23
6.18 · alpine 3.24, nixos 26.05
6.19 · arch rolling, ubuntu stonking
6.7 · ubuntu noble
6.13 · alpine 3.22, fedora 43, fedora 44
6.17 · ubuntu resolute
6.9.1 · debian trixie, fedora 43, ubuntu questing

✨ NAME ✨

/proc/cmdline — kernel boot arguments. That's the whole name bestie, and yes: this page is proc_cmdline(5), living its best life in the File Formats Manual section. 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so /proc/cmdline is where the arguments that were passed to the Linux kernel at boot time show up. 🎀 Usually a boot manager is the one doing the passing — think lilo(8) or grub(8) — and if arguments got embedded in the kernel image or initramfs via CONFIG_BOOT_CONFIG, those will also be displayed here. No cap, it's literally the kernel's lil boot-time receipt. 🦋

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

proc(5)

🫶 That was proc_cmdline(5) from Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-02-08. Periodt, slay, hydrate, and go read those kernel args. 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from

arch rolling: man-pages 6.20-1 · BSD-2-Clause AND BSD-3-Clause AND BSD-4.3TAHOE AND BSD-4-Clause-UC AND GPL-1.0-or-later AND GPL-2.0-only AND GPL-2.0-or-later AND GPL-3.0-or-later AND LGPL-3.0-linking-exception AND LGPL-3.0-or-later AND LicenseRef-Public-Domain AND LicenseRef-UltraPermissive AND Linux-man-pages-1-para AND Linux-man-pages-copyleft AND Linux-man-pages-copyleft-2-para AND Linux-man-pages-copyleft-var AND MIT AND Spencer-94
nixpkgs unstable: man-pages 6.20
📜 the page's license: GPL-3.0-or-later
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-11-03: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms