Postgres startup processes on linux? - Mailing list pgsql-general

We’re running PG 8.1 on CentOS 5.0.   When postgres starts the following processes apparently required by the DB itself get created: 

postgres 23784     1  0 13:55 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/postmaster -p 5432 -D /var/lib/pgsql/data

postgres 23786 23784  0 13:55 ?        00:00:00 postgres: logger process                         

postgres 23788 23784  0 13:55 ?        00:00:00 postgres: writer process                         

postgres 23789 23784  0 13:55 ?        00:00:01 postgres: stats buffer process                   

postgres 23790 23789  0 13:55 ?        00:00:00 postgres: stats collector process                

postgres 23802 23784  3 13:55 ?        00:00:58 postgres: airwave airwave [local] idle           

postgres 23803 23784  0 13:55 ?        00:00:12 postgres: airwave airwave [local] idle           

I understand what the first five are for.   What are 23802 and 23803?   These look like they might other processes started by the postmaster to serve connections. Tey have the property that they never go away, and seem to always follow *very closely* on the other pids, as though they were being created by the db itself, like the others just before them.   However they the list information looks like a normal pg connection server created by postmaster.  Our usual connection servers are identified in our own logs and do not include these two pids.  

In addition pid 23802 exhibits the following mysterious behavior in the pg log, which is logging duration for all SQL statements running over 100 ms :

2009-03-30 14:58:23.763 EDT  25284  LOG:  autovacuum: processing database "airwave"

2009-03-30 14:58:30.072 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 236.061 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 14:58:47.985 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 269.877 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 14:59:23.774 EDT  25305  LOG:  autovacuum: processing database "airwave"

2009-03-30 14:59:33.923 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 256.340 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 14:59:51.130 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 316.898 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:00:07.967 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 266.485 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:00:23.790 EDT  25324  LOG:  autovacuum: processing database "airwave"

2009-03-30 15:00:23.925 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 338.512 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:00:25.744 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 272.170 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:00:42.612 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 310.099 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:01:04.570 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 254.574 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:01:21.400 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 245.433 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:01:23.925 EDT  25345  LOG:  autovacuum: processing database "airwave"

2009-03-30 15:01:38.286 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 231.673 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:02:12.017 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 413.221 ms  statement: commit

2009-03-30 15:02:23.954 EDT  25366  LOG:  autovacuum: processing database "airwave"

2009-03-30 15:02:46.843 EDT  23802  LOG:  duration: 268.504 ms  statement: commit

You can see in the process list that process 23802 is building up a lot of cpu time, as confirmed in the pg log we run. 

Can this be some native pg process opened by the DB itself, or is it some rogue connection server that we have to track down?

TIA,

Jim

HP ProCurve