linux server - high CPU usage

[Empty_5oul]

There is very heavy CPU usage on a linux server. We looked at the process list and can't determine what is using up all the resources, what can we do?

are there any other commands we can try?

[bryanRS]

top will order the processes by % of cpu, so that may shed some light.

Also, check /tmp, especially if this is a web server, for files that you don't recognize. Running a cat on the file may show what it is (innocuous or not). I've had CMS exploits hacked where a file was downloaded to /tmp and opened up a IRC bot channel for remote commands. A PITA, and unlikely, but always something to check.

Bryan

[Empty_5oul]

thanks.

they are all procmail how can i stop them?

[bryanRS]

Well, since I don't know much about procmail, I'm not sure how much help I can be with that (killall procmail always works, but it's not nice/clean). I'd make sure to check /var/log/(something about procmail) or /var/log/messages to try to find the root cause of the problem with procmail. What flavor of Linux do you have? For RH/FC systems, use /etc/init.d/procmail stop and then see if there's more procmail processes running, using top again. Is this machine used as an email server? There may be a configuration error, etc. that will need to be fixed, then restart procmail.

Of course, searching for some procmail information can also prove useful.

[Empty_5oul]

thanks.

It turned out to be another piece of 3rd party software (clamassassain) this was using up all the resources and stopping us from killing procmail processes. Now the product has been uninstalled the problems have been resolved, we have now installed spamassassain and we dont have any issues.

thanks for swift responses!