To harden a server or simply reduce its security footprint, it is very useful to get a list of the main processes running. However, it is not an obvious task to get a synthetic view like this.
Using a command like ps -edf brings too much information and doesn’t really help you.
I recently came across the pstree command and found it quite useful.
First, install the psmisc package available in the base repository:
# yum install -y psmisc
Then, execute the pstree command:
# pstree systemd─┬─NetworkManager───2*[{NetworkManager}] ├─abrt-watch-log ├─abrtd ├─2*[agetty] ├─atd ├─auditd───{auditd} ├─chronyd ├─crond ├─dbus-daemon───{dbus-daemon} ├─firewalld───{firewalld} ├─httpd───6*[httpd] ├─lsmd ├─lvmetad ├─master─┬─pickup │ └─qmgr ├─polkitd───5*[{polkitd}] ├─rngd ├─rsyslogd───2*[{rsyslogd}] ├─smartd ├─sshd─┬─sshd───bash───pstree │ └─sshd───sshd ├─systemd-journal ├─systemd-logind ├─systemd-udevd └─tuned───4*[{tuned}]
As the test was performed on a virtual machine, I could quickly see that the smartd daemon (part of the smartmontools package) was running. This daemon monitors disk health: this is completely useless in a virtual environment where all disks are already managed by the host or a dedicated storage subsystem.
# systemctl disable --now smartd # yum remove -y smartmontools
I hope you find this tool as useful as I found it.
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