8146 root 15 0 69432 3224 2500 S 1.3 1.2 0:00.04 sshd
1 root 15 0 23560 1696 1356 S 0.0 0.6 0:01.25 init
1167 root 18 0 14764 1132 932 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.01 xinetd
1168 daemon 18 0 16692 452 292 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 atd
1169 root 15 0 18892 1056 820 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.51 cron
1197 root 15 0 49428 2696 2132 S 0.0 1.0 0:06.34 sshd
1215 syslog 15 0 12540 792 616 S 0.0 0.3 0:02.37 syslogd
1284 root 18 0 68268 2468 792 S 0.0 0.9 0:01.32 sendmail-mta
1980 root 16 0 70768 3328 2584 S 0.0 1.3 0:00.03 sshd
1994 sysadmin 15 0 70768 1648 896 S 0.0 0.6 0:00.08 sshd
1997 sysadmin 16 0 18092 2148 1540 S 0.0 0.8 0:00.03 bash
8020 root 16 0 70768 3328 2584 S 0.0 1.3 0:00.04 sshd
8036 sysadmin 15 0 70768 1660 896 R 0.0 0.6 0:00.01 sshd
8037 sysadmin 15 0 18092 2124 1520 S 0.0 0.8 0:00.01 bash
8065 sysadmin 15 0 19184 1312 1060 R 0.0 0.5 0:00.06 top
I am on an openvz virtual host, so the memory usage reported here by top is form the whole machine. The sshds are consuming most of my available memory - why are there so many? Do I need them all?
The OpenSSH server will fork a copy for every client connected. So if you look at the output of
netstat -nt | grep :22you should see several connections, plus you will see additional processes per user if you have privilege separation enabled (UsePrivilegeSeparation).Given your output, I would guess you have two connections open as the user
sysadmin, and you have privilege separation enabled.