Notes

Busybox-only pstree

Created: 2020-01-31 — modified: 2020-12-07 — tags: bash

For when you're on limited environment but want to see a process tree

Just use this script:

#!/bin/busybox ash
#
# Script to show process tree.
# Accepts one optional argument:
# pid of root process - by default 1 (init)

cd /tmp

# Build list of 'parent child' pids
grep 'PPid:' /proc/*/status | sed -r 's_/proc/([^/]*)/[^0-9]*([0-9]*)_\2 \1_' >ppids.ps

# Preserve ps output to show
ps w >ps.ps

# own pid - we don't show own children because they're guaranteed
# to change between above two calls
self=$$

# function to show one process with all children, recursively
# args:
# * pid of process to show
# * indent - string of spaces to print before current line
showproc()
{
    # print current process
    echo "$2$(grep "^ *$1 " ps.ps || echo "$1 ???")"
    # don't print own children
    test $1 == $self && return
    # print children, adding two spaces to indent
    for subpid in `grep "^$1 " ppids.ps | awk '{print $2}'`; do
        showproc $subpid "  $2"
    done
}

# start with root process (pid 1 by default)
showproc ${1:-1} ''