[root@onong 5227]# strace -s 1024 -p 5227 Process 5227 attached - interrupt to quit read(28, The fd in question is a pipe: [root@onong tmp]# ls -l /proc/5227/fd total 0 lr-x------ 1 root root 64 Feb 21 02:02 0 -> /dev/null l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Feb 21 02:02 1 -> /tmp/abc.log . . lr-x------ 1 root root 64 Feb 21 02:02 28 -> pipe:[28443] Following are the processes which have a reference to this pipe: [root@onong tmp]# lsof | grep 28443 perl 5049 root 28r FIFO 0,6 28443 pipe ntpd 9936 ntp 28r FIFO 0,6 28443 pipe ntpd 9936 ntp 29w FIFO 0,6 28443 pipe dhcpd 10228 root 28r FIFO 0,6 28443 pipe java 15518 root 28r FIFO 0,6 28443 pipe