[EnVoy]

I've noticed a new process running called tail. I've located it in this path:

/usr/bin/tail

Anyone konw what it is?

[troyw2000]

If you're unfamiliar with *nix systems, you should investigate using the "man" command. It's a built-in help system.

Anyways, go to your terminal/command line and type "man tail"

Here's a short excerpt:

NAME
tail - display the last part of a file

SYNOPSIS
tail [-f | -F | -r] [-b number | -c number | -n number] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
The tail utility displays the contents of file or, by default, its stan-
dard input, to the standard output.

[EnVoy]

I have already checked that, and read it.

I'm curious as to why it is suddenly running as a process when it was non-existant before.....

[dudesteve]

well, something is causing it to run, obviously.

Maybe it'll help to follow the ppid back to find out how it was called, starting with something like:

ps -O ppid `ps -auwwx | grep tail | awk '{print $2}'`

and working your way backwards.

[EnVoy]

Maybe it'll help to follow the ppid back to find out how it was called, starting with something like:

ps -O ppid `ps -auwwx | grep tail | awk '{print $2}'`

and working your way backwards.

Thanks for your suggstion, you'll have to forgive me, this one is a little over my head. When I run that, I get this:

PID PPID TT STAT TIME COMMAND
427 423 p1 S+ 0:00.09 -tcsh (tcsh)
688 687 std Ss 0:00.03 -tcsh (tcsh)

[dudesteve]

hmm. well, that doesn't shed much light.

This indicates that tail wasn't actually running when you ran the command.

You'd need to provide more info about the currently running processes when you see a tail actually running if you really want to know.

[BigMac2]

If you have DesktopConsole, that is why you got some tail's ;-)

DesktopConsole is using tail command for displaying logs on the desktop.

[DaGuy]

Some less sophisticated suggestions include:

1. Quitting suspect apps and then checking to see if the tails are still running.

2. Kill the tail process and see which app screams bloody murder -this one is evil.

[EnVoy]

BigMac2
If you have DesktopConsole, that is why you got some tail's ;-)

DesktopConsole is using tail command for displaying logs on the desktop.

Good call BigMac2, that was it. Thanks for your help..... (and everyonelse too!)