[ale] diagnosis

[James P. Kinney III]

If it is a cracked machine, running a statically linked top from a CD
will gain access to the real top data. Top is a common binary to fiddle
with with a root kit. 

It is certainly possible to _add_ a module or _remove_ a module, but
change out the kernel with out a reboot (unless 2-kernel-monte is
available, I have not been able to find this :(  ). So the actual data
stream for top is not tamper-able easily. Thus a known good
statically-linked top would give access to the running system and show
the _real_ processes that are running.

If top shows no malicious files, it's time to take some snapshots over
time to plot which app is failing.

#!/bin/sh
echo date >> /tmp/top.txt
top -b -n 1 -c >> /tmp/top.txt
echo "###############" >>/tmp/top.txt
echo >>/tmp/top.txt
echo >>/tmp/top.txt

Run as a cron every minute for an hour.

If you want, you can now mash/mangle the data into a nice plot using
some perl and gnplot (or a spreadsheet).


On Mon, 2004-04-19 at 11:56, Geoffrey wrote:
> Dow Hurst wrote:
> > How can we find the process that is soaking the memory?  How do you 
> > manipulate /proc to find out the originating process that owns the 
> > memory being used?  I know IRIX had tools to look at memory and see 
> > which processes owned what part of memory.  Does Linux?
> > 
> > Seems if you knew what was leaking you would have a major part of the 
> > battle won.
> 
> I believe we mentioned top, but he noted that doesn't give him anything. 
>   That's what concerns me.  If it doesn't show, is it being hidden for a 
> reason???
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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