Square brackets on process names

From: <dave.campbell_at_vf.vodafone.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1999 15:08:09 +0100

As part of our performance monitoring, I track certain processes using PS.
By taking two snapshots and comparing the CPU usage, it is possible to
identify the BIG CPU users for long running processes.

I have noticed the following problem though.
An Oracle Checkpoint process ora_abc_ckpt, managed to change its name to
[oracle] for the second PS. I ran PS again and the name had changed back to
ora_abc_ckpt. The pid remained the same, and the CPU count increased at
each measurement.

My questions are basically:
a) Why does this happen?
b) Should I be concerned?
c) How can I stop this from happening?

For further information, the only process name that I can find that
consistently uses [...] is [kernel idle]. I know what this process does, so
there is no need to explain this, but I am wondering if the use of [...] in
a process name indicates a specific kind of process state.

Your help is appreciated
Received on Fri Sep 03 1999 - 14:10:54 NZST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Wed Nov 08 2023 - 11:53:39 NZDT