In Aug 2018 NeilBrown noticed commit 1f4aace60b0e ("fs/seq_file.c: simplify seq_file iteration code and interface") "Some ->next functions do not increment *pos when they return NULL... Note that such ->next functions are buggy and should be fixed. A simple demonstration is dd if=/proc/swaps bs=1000 skip=1 Choose any block size larger than the size of /proc/swaps. This will always show the whole last line of /proc/swaps" Described problem is still actual. If you make lseek into middle of last output line following read will output end of last line and whole last line once again. $ dd if=/proc/swaps bs=1 # usual output Filename Type Size Used Priority /dev/dm-0 partition 4194812 97536 -2 104+0 records in 104+0 records out 104 bytes copied $ dd if=/proc/swaps bs=40 skip=1 # last line was generated twice dd: /proc/swaps: cannot skip to specified offset v/dm-0 partition 4194812 97536 -2 /dev/dm-0 partition 4194812 97536 -2 3+1 records in 3+1 records out 131 bytes copied There are lot of other affected files, I've found 30+ including /proc/net/ip_tables_matches and /proc/sysvipc/* Following patch fixes ext4-related file, script below generates endless output $ q=;while read -r r;do echo "$((++q)) $r";done </proc/fs/jbd2/DEV/info https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206283 Vasily Averin (1): jbd2_seq_info_next should increase position index fs/jbd2/journal.c | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) -- 1.8.3.1