Really old /proc weirdness?

Ken D'Ambrosio ken at jots.org
Thu Mar 11 09:33:52 EST 2010


While I have no insights -- none -- into what's going on with your /proc
weirdness, if triviata of that detail is significant to your system
reproduction, I'd probably break down, blow away the (non-boot) files on
the new server, tar everything over from the old one, and
re-ip/re-hostname.

$.02,

-Ken


On Thu, March 11, 2010 9:25 am, Kenny Lussier wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
> I have the unfortunate need to reproduce a server that was built 6
> years ago, and make them identical. The server is RHEL3 i386. I have
> managed to get the boxes to an identical state at the OS and package
> level, and everything seems to work. However, there is one thing that has
> me puzzled. On the original box, when a child process is forked, it is
> hidden from `ps`. In one case, if I do a `ps auxww | grep splunk`, I get:
>
> root      2933  0.2  0.3 70656 29692 ?       S    Mar10   2:25 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      2934  0.0  0.0 17756 6216 ?        S    Mar10   0:01 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      2161  0.0  0.0  3696  672 pts/0    S    09:05   0:00 grep splunk
>
>
> But if I look in `top`, I see:
>
>
> 2933 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:01   1 splunkd
> 2934 root      15   0  6216 6216  5492 S     0.0  0.0   0:01   2 splunkd
> 2935 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   2 splunkd
> 2936 root      23   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   2 splunkd
> 2937 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:04   0 splunkd
> 2938 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:27   2 splunkd
> 2939 root      25   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   0 splunkd
> 2940 root      25   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   0 splunkd
> 2941 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:01   1 splunkd
> 2942 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:01   3 splunkd
> 2944 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:02   2 splunkd
> 2951 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   0 splunkd
> 2952 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   1 splunkd
> 2953 root      25   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   0 splunkd
> 2956 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   1:38   2 splunkd
> 2957 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:02   0 splunkd
> 2958 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   0 splunkd
> 2959 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   1 splunkd
> 2961 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:00   0 splunkd
> 2962 root      15   0 29692  28M  8444 S     0.0  0.3   0:01   0 splunkd
>
>
> In /proc, all of the pids except for 2933 and 2934 exist, but they are .
> files:
>
>
>
> .2935/
> .2936/
> .2937/
> .2938/
> .2939/
> .2940/
> .2941/
> .2942/
> .2941/
> etc....
>
> I have read up on this, and I understand group leaders, and group
> member non-leaders. The weirdness comes in on the new system. Exact same
> kernel, package-for-package identical to the first. The difference is that
> there are no .pid files in /proc, and ps shows every child:
>
> [root@ root]# ps auxww | grep splunk
> root      4271  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4272  0.0  0.0 17904 6196 ?        S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4273  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4274  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4275  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4276  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4277  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:01 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4278  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4279  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4280  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4281  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4283  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4284  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4285  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4286  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4289  0.1  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:08 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4296  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4297  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4298  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4300  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
> root      4301  0.0  0.3 62352 30912 ?       S    08:00   0:00 splunkd -p
> 9998 start
>
>
> Does anyone with a better understanding of the 2.4 ( Linux
> 2.4.21-47.ELsmp #1 SMP Wed Jul 5 20:38:41 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386
> GNU/Linux) kernel understand why there is a difference on two
> seemingly identical systems?
>
> TIA,
> Kenny
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>
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