The Linux Help and Tutorial Thread

[PoppaGeek]

iostat and sar might if you can figure out the right switch. Both are installed with the following.
sudo apt-get install sysstat

The number of options or switches can be daunting but they are powerful programs. I will do more reading and see if I can find how to do what you want, iostat shows everything about disk activity, network and cpu but so far I do not see it naming the process who is writing or reading.

There are several system processes that write to log files and read other files on set intervals or after an event. cron and syslog being 2. While both are configurable and you may even be able to shut them down it may not be a great idea. It might be ok on a crunchers that is operating fine but you will loose alot of trouble shooting ability. syslog writes to files in /var/log and they can get big so there are cron tasks that compress and rotate them. Do not shut that off unless you shut down syslog and like I said I do not know what will happen if you do. Never heard of it. Possibly a better solution is mount /var/log and /var/tmp on a USB mem stick or small HD.