how to read list of running processes on a remote computer in C++

Question

What can be done to know and list all running processes on a remote computer?
One idea is to have a server listening to our request on the remote machine and the other one is to use ssh.
The problem is i dont know whether there will be such a server running on the remote machine and i cannot use ssh because it needs authentication.
Is there any other way out ?

Answer 1

If you

• cannot install a server program on the remote machine
• cannot use anything that requires authentication

then you should not be allowed to know the list of all running processes on a machine. That request would be a security nightmare!

You can do something much simpler without (as many) security problems: scan the publicly-available ports for programs that are running. Programs like nmap.org let you know a fair bit of information about the publicly-running programs on machines.

Answer 2

I have done something similar in the past using SNMP. I don't have the specifics in front of me, but something like "snmpwalk -v2 -c public hostname prTable" got me the process table. I recall later configuring SNMP to generate errors when the number of processes didn't meet our specified requirement, like httpd must have at least 1 and less than 50.

Answer 3

I suggest you look at the code for a remote login, rlogin. You could remotely login to an account that has the privileges that you need. Once logged in, you can fetch a list of processes.

This looks like a good application for a script rather than a C or C++ program.