run.x86-linux always at 100% CPU

Question

I have my computers left open for 2 days. The last few hours when running the top command I get back these results:

top - 20:51:39 up 1 day,  7:22,  4 users,  load average: 1.38, 1.64, 1.53
Tasks: 179 total,   2 running, 173 sleeping,   0 stopped,   4 zombie
Cpu(s):100.0%us,  0.0%sy,  0.0%ni,  0.0%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   1017176k total,   792072k used,   225104k free,    44676k buffers
Swap:  1614492k total,   197084k used,  1417408k free,   325896k cached
 Unknown command - try 'h' for help 
  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                             
20925 monra     20   0 17252  11m  548 R  103  1.1  16:26.47 run.x86-linux                                       
22095 monra     20   0  2548 1240  924 R  103  0.1   0:00.02 top                                                 
    1 root      20   0  2800 1144  740 S    0  0.1   0:00.80 init    

As you see the program run.x86-linux is eating 100% CPU. Why is this? Is there any way to fix it without restarting the computer?

Answer 1

The file run.x86-linux is part of the smlnj-runtime package, which is a dependency of:

• smlnj
• ml-yacc
• ml-lex

Focus on troubleshooting these applications.

Keep an eye on watch "ps -C run.x86-linux -o pcpu,pid,start_time,command" while you use them, and see if you can devise a series of steps that will reliably cause the runaway CPU usage.

If you think you have found a bug that is not the result of your own programming activities, file a bug report against the runaway process and change the "In what package did you find this bug?" field to the package for the application that is causing the problem.

Answer 2

Press k to kill the program. More importantly, what is this program and where did you get it from? It smells like some malware you downloaded from a bad web site.