Re: How to trace why a process is running?
Eric House writes:
> Scenario: my machine is on but hasn't been used for several hours when
> I notice the hard drive taking lots of hits. I log on and run 'top'
> which tells me a 'find', owned by root, is using 25% of the CPU.
About 5AM? probably cron running updatedb to update the database used by
'locate'.
> 'ps -ef', even as root, doesn't show the 'find'.
ps -ef does not show processes with no controlling terminal.
> Question: how do I figure out who started that 'find' and why?
Next time use 'ps axef'. If you recall the exact time, look in the
/etc/crontab. In fact, look in /etc/crontab (and
/etc/cron.{daily|weekly|monthly}) anyway. It's educational.
--
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI
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