process_running¶

Status:: ● Development
Category:: Linux System
Function Name:: process_running

Tests if a process is running with expected number of instances (Linux only).

This test function checks if a specified process is running on the system and optionally validates the minimum number of instances. It uses process name matching to find running processes.

Parameters¶

Parameter	Type	Description
`process_name`	string	Required. The name of the process to check for.
`min_instances`	integer	Optional. Minimum number of process instances expected. Default: 1.

Usage Example¶

Basic Process Check¶

tests:
  - name: test_process_running_single
    function: linux.process_running
    parameter:
      process_name: 'systemd'
      min_instances: 1
    description: "Test process_running with single instance"

Multiple Instance Check¶

tests:
  - name: test_apache_workers
    function: linux.process_running
    parameter:
      process_name: 'apache2'
      min_instances: 3
    description: "Test that at least 3 Apache worker processes are running"

Expected Failure Cases¶

tests:
  - name: test_process_not_running
    function: linux.process_running
    expect_to_fail: true
    parameter:
      process_name: 'nonexistent-process-12345'
      min_instances: 1
    description: "Test process_running with non-existent process"

Variable-Based Process Names¶

variables:
  database_process:
    type: string
    value: "mysqld"
    description: "Database server process"

tests:
  - name: test_database_running
    function: linux.process_running
    parameter:
      process_name: '{{database_process}}'
      min_instances: 1
    description: "Test database process is running"

Common Use Cases¶

Service Process Monitoring: Verify that daemon processes are running for system services
Application Health Checks: Ensure application processes haven’t crashed or stopped
Load Balancer Validation: Check that multiple worker processes are running for high-load services
Container Process Verification: Validate that containerized applications have spawned expected processes
Security Process Monitoring: Ensure security-related processes like antivirus or monitoring tools are active

Process Detection¶

Process Matching:

Uses process name matching against running processes
Matches against the command name in the process list
Case-sensitive process name matching

Instance Counting:

Counts all processes matching the specified name
Validates that at least min_instances are running
Useful for services that spawn multiple worker processes

Platform Requirements:

Linux operating system
Access to process information (typically via /proc filesystem)
Appropriate permissions to read process information

Return Values¶

Success: Returns success when the required number of process instances are found running
Failure: Returns failure when: - Process is not running - Fewer instances are running than the minimum required - Process name doesn’t match any running processes
Execution Error: Returns execution error when: - Not running on Linux system - Permission denied accessing process information - System error occurs while checking processes

Example Results¶

# Success case
result: success
details:
  - "process systemd found running with 1 instances (minimum: 1)"

# Failure case - process not found
result: failed
details:
  - "process nonexistent-process-12345 not found running (minimum instances: 1)"

# Failure case - insufficient instances
result: failed
details:
  - "process apache2 found running with 1 instances (minimum: 3)"

# Execution error case - wrong platform
result: execution_error
error: "This test only runs on Linux"