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Accepted
Peter.O
Asked: 2010-12-12 21:10:00 +0800 CST

In htop, I sometimes see lists of 64 processes, identical for all but the PID. What are they?

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I've noticed this situation several times (but I'm not sure if it is always the same command).

I don't even know how to describe the lead-up to this situation, unless it is because of a detached script I've been testing which hasn't terminated properly...

The best I can do is present this image of htop (Tree view)... I've only shown the first few. There is a total of 63 subordinate entries (plus the 1 parent)... and t hey just sit there!

I'd like to know what is going on?... and is the "64" some kind of limit?

Whatever the case, it just seems bizzare to have 64 threads/processes "running"

Update:
I've just rebooted the system, and this time, the first thing I did was to check htop...
console-kit-daemon shows 63 threads... so It looks like this may be a normal situation... It still seems a bit strange to me... Does anyone know why there are so many threads for console-kit-daemon ?

alt text

process

2 Answers

  1. Those are user threads (as opposed to processes), and you can hide them using the 'H' toggle in htop. See this explanation in its man page:

    H Hide user threads: on systems that represent them differently than ordinary processes (such as recent NPTL-based systems), this can hide threads from userspace processes in the process list. (This is a toggle key.)

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  2. Best Answer

    The 60+ threads is a bugalt text with ConsoleKit.

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