PF "[pf purge]", what is it?

[Deleted member 65380]

ps snippet (only 1 relevant line):

root       99   0.0  0.2 12608  1852  -  Is    1Oct21      0:00.00 adjkerntz -i
root      623   0.0  0.1 11404  1132  -  Ss    1Oct21      0:04.94 /sbin/devd
root      680   0.0  0.0     0    16  -  DL    1Oct21    125:11.43 [pf purge]
root      828   0.0  0.3 12752  2480  -  Ss    1Oct21      1:08.23 /usr/sbin/syslogd -ss

Obviously it relates to pf but there are no other pf processes listed, why is this purge distinctly listed?

 

[Kristof Provost]

It's a kernel thread pf uses for cleanup. It's always going to be there if pf is loaded.

It's listed explicitly because it's the only kernel thread pf uses. All other pf work is either done in the context of the network stack (or the context of a sending process) or in callouts. Those do not get listed (separately) in the process list.

 

[Deleted member 65380]

Thank you, great explanation.