proc_tid_children(5)

💖 proc_tid_children 💖

okay bestie, so this one's a lil page from the File Formats Manual section (that's the "(5)" vibe, iykyk), and it's all about a very specific lil corner of /proc. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

/proc/tid/children — child tasks 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

/proc/tid/children (since Linux 3.5)

so basically this file gives you a space-separated list of the child tasks of this task. and every single child task in that list? it's represented by its TID. that's it, that's the whole thing 🎀

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⚠️ okay but this is where it gets spicy, so listen up bestie

This option is meant for the checkpoint-restore (CRIU) system, okay? and it only reliably hands you a list of children if all of the child processes are stopped or frozen. periodt.

It does not work properly if children of the target task exit while the file is being read! 😭 and like — exiting children may cause non-exiting children to be omitted from the list. yeah. the ones that are still alive just... get ghosted. 🙈

which honestly makes this interface even more unreliable than the classic PID-based approaches if the inspected task and its children aren't frozen. so like, most code should probably not use this interface. fr fr. it's giving "don't". 💀

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🧚 kernel config lore 🧚

• Until Linux 4.2, the presence of this file was governed by the CONFIG_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE kernel configuration option.
• Since Linux 4.2, it's governed by the CONFIG_PROC_CHILDREN option. ✨

so if the file just isn't showing up for you, vibe check your kernel config, bestie 😌

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• proc(5)

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and that's the whole page, no cap 💖 go check out proc(5) next if you wanna be a /proc completionist 👑

🎀 this little masterpiece came from Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-02-08, page proc_tid_children(5) — slay, ate, no crumbs left 🌸