Centos – Linux process ‘SMBD’ running on the server

centoscommand-line-interfacesamba

I am trying to figure out how to clean up my server, better monitor its processes and memories, and more. I came across the 'top' command and see several instances of 'smbd' and 'sshd'. I assume the latter shows active connections/processes using SSH but I am not familiar with smbd.

I tend to think this is 'samba' (and even if it was I have no idea what that is or what it does). Any advice if it is necessary or what the process actually does?

I have a Media Temple (MT) DV 3.5 running CentOS 5.7 for reference.

Best Answer

smbd is the samba server daemon that provides filesharing and printing services to Windows clients. You can safely disable it if you do not provide file/print services to windows clients.

To stop the service

/sbin/service smb stop

to disable it from starting with your system

/sbin/chkconfig smb off