How to change argv0 in bash so command shows up with different name in ps?

Question

In a C program I can write argv[0] and the new name shows up in a ps listing.

How can I do this in bash?

Answer 1

Just for the record, even though it does not exactly answer the original poster's question, this is something trivial to do with zsh:

ARGV0=emacs nethack

Answer 2

Copy the bash executable to a different name.

You can do this in the script itself...

cp /bin/bash ./new-name
PATH=$PATH:.
exec new-name $0

If you are trying to pretend you are not a shell script you can rename the script itself to something cool or even " " (a single space) so

exec new-name " "

Will execute bash your script and appears in the ps list as just new-name.

OK so calling a script " " is a very bad idea :)

Basically, to change the name

bash script

rename bash and rename the script.

If you are worried, as Mr McDoom. apparently is, about copying a binary to a new name (which is entirely safe) you could also create a symlink

ln -s /bin/bash ./MyFunkyName
./MyFunkyName

This way, the symlink is what appears in the ps list. (again use PATH=$PATH:. if you dont want the ./)

Answer 3

You can do it when running a new program via exec -a <newname>.

Answer 4

I will just add that this must be possible at runtime, at least in some environments. Assigning $0 in perl on linux does change what shows up in ps. I do not know how that is implemented, however. If I can find out, i'll update this.

edit: Based on how perl does it, it is non-trivial. I doubt there is any bask built in way at runtime but don't know for sure. You can see how perl does sets the process name at runtime.

Answer 5

( exec -a foo bash -c 'echo $0' ) 

Answer 6

I've had a chance to go through the source for bash and it does not look like there is any support for writing to argv[0].