Investigating (and managing) processes...

A Little Peaved!

04-08-2003, 05:37 PM

Where can one find more information about processes?

Here are a few things I am trying to do, any help and information greatly appreciated!:

1. IDENTIFY processes. Using Process Viewer, one can see running processes- but how do you identify what a particular process is? whether it is important for system operation or not?

2. Control whether or not processes get started. For example, I see three fax processes running because of FaxSTF and one process for Palm Desktop, even though all options for this software is turned off. I understand these processes exist, so that they will function if the user decides later to turn them "on". But, if you know you don't want to use such things, what are the best ways to prevent such processes from getting started at all?

3. Lastly, Little Snitch firewall software notified me on separate occasions that "qmail" and "sendmail" were trying to connect to an outside domain. There is nothing I was running or doing that should cause this to happen. How can I discover what activated these programs? What are some good guesses as to what would cause these programs to run, if the user did not cause it?

thank you very much in advance,

puzzled, but not peaved :)

A Little Peaved!

04-13-2003, 06:21 PM

Anyone? Any info for #1 or #2 above?

brmic

04-13-2003, 06:36 PM

try this for general information:
http://www.westwind.com/reference/OS-X/background-processes.html
as for getting info on processes, i only know the route via PPID, though that is often not very helpful either.
to find out when what gets started, you might use GeekTool or similar to run top as desktop background.

i know it's not what you wanted, but since no one else seemed to be able to help, i thought i'd share what the bit i know.
markus

mervTormel

04-13-2003, 06:53 PM

% ps wwaxc
...

% apropos syslogd inetd lookupd ...
...

% man syslogd

brmic

04-14-2003, 03:56 AM

thanks merv, works as advertised (i expected no less from you). could you offer any suggestions on question two and three?

markus

djn1

04-14-2003, 05:02 AM

Originally posted by A Little Peaved!
2. Control whether or not processes get started. For example, I see three fax processes running because of FaxSTF and one process for Palm Desktop, even though all options for this software is turned off. I understand these processes exist, so that they will function if the user decides later to turn them "on". But, if you know you don't want to use such things, what are the best ways to prevent such processes from getting started at all?
I would suspect that these items are launched as daemons through your login items. Check through the list and see what's there.