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Show HN: Witr – Explain why a process is running on your Linux system

https://github.com/pranshuparmar/witr
113•pranshuparmar•7h ago
Hi HN,

I built a small Linux CLI tool called witr (Why Is This Running?).

The idea came from a situation most of us have hit: you log into a machine, see a process or port running, and immediately wonder why it exists, who started it, and what is keeping it alive right now.

witr traces a process, service, or port back to its origin and responsibility chain and explains it in a way that’s quick to read, especially when you’re debugging under pressure.

This is v0.1.0. It’s intentionally small and focused. Feedback, criticism, and edge cases are very welcome.

Repo: https://github.com/pranshuparmar/witr

Comments

pranshuparmar•7h ago
A quick note on scope: this is not meant to replace existing monitoring or observability tools. It’s designed for those moments when you SSH into a box and need to quickly understand “why is this running” without digging through configs, cron jobs, or service trees manually.

Happy to answer questions or adjust direction based on feedback.

dcminter•2h ago
This is very clever. I've often needed to figure out what some running process was actually for (e.g. because it just started consuming a lot of some limited resource) but it never occurred to me that one could have a tool to answer that question. Well done.

---

Edit: Ah, ok, I slightly misunderstood - skimmed the README too quickly. I thought it was also explaining what the process did :D Still a clever tool, but thought it went a step further.

Perhaps you should add that though - combine Man page output with a database of known processes that run on various Linux systems and a mechanism for contributing PRs to extend that database...? Unlesss it's just me that often wants to know "what the fsck does /tmp/hax0r/deeploysketchyd actually do?" :P

Saris•2h ago
This looks very handy to have around!
canxerian•2h ago
Great idea!
4ggr0•2h ago
i definitely see the use for it, lots of moments where i wonder how or why something was started.
q2dg•2h ago
pstree doesn't answer the why?
mathfailure•1h ago
No, it does not.
dontdieych•2h ago
Nice and installed then starred.
TheCraiggers•1h ago
This is amazing. Thank you for sharing this.

Do you have any qualms about me making an entry in the AUR for this?

giancarlostoro•1h ago
Im not the author but I would love for an AUR made for this ;)

My favorite thing about arch is how insanely quickly AURs pop up for interesting tools.

techsystems•39m ago
I'm really loving this!

'Responsibility chain' will become a trendy phrase.

mh-•23m ago
This is great. Small, trivial suggestion: the gif that loops in the README should pause on the screen w/ the output for a few seconds longer - it disappears (restarts) too quickly to take in all of the output.
DougN7•7m ago
What does this means for context: “Git repository name and branch” Does this mean it detects if something is running from within a git repository folder? Couldn’t find the code that checked this.

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Show HN: Witr – Explain why a process is running on your Linux system

https://github.com/pranshuparmar/witr
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