What is process "-:0"??? 1

[thedaver]

I was noodling around my Ubuntu test box trying to find something else in "ps" when I saw a process named "-:0"!! I thought I'd been hacked.

I ordered ps with "ps ajfx" to get the process tree, and it turns out this thing is owned by X and xdm

    1  4461  4461  4461 ?           -1 Ss       0   0:00 /usr/bin/X11/xdm
 4461  4577  4577  4577 tty7      4577 Ss+      0   0:00  \_ /usr/bin/X vt7 -dpi 100 -nolisten tcp -auth /var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-dkvU06
 4461  4580  4580  4580 ?           -1 Ss       0   0:00  \_ -:0

It's very difficult to google for this string with results. I'm curious if anyone on this forum knows what this 'ps' entry is describing!

Thanks, D!



D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting

http://www.dermanagement.com/

 

[gdvissch]

It looks like it is your X server
:0 stands for the first display of your X server
if you have a second display it would be :1 etc...

it also looks logical that xdm is the parent as it starts X, which has a child for every display...

G.

 

[thedaver]

Excellent, glad it was an expected answer! Don't do too much GUI stuff on linux, so there's more to learn. Thanks!

D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting

http://www.dermanagement.com/