many journalctl processes at once on F20

Fred Smith fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us
Thu Feb 12 15:35:18 UTC 2015


Hi all!

I've got an old netbook sitting here, running F20, performing a dedicated 
function, where nobody ever logs into it (except me, once in a long
while).

I've noticed lately that it seems AWFULLY slow (even for the slow
computer that it normally is). Last night I logged in to see if I could
see what's going on, and I fund a load average around 17-20, ten 
instances of journalctl running, and over a gig of swap space in use.
Uptime, as of that moment was around six days.

In the output of top I didn't see anything particularly startling in
memory usage other than the gig of swap.

I did a "yum update", and rebooted this morning to pick up the new
kernel, libs, etc. and now it has no instances of journalctl running
and zero swap usage.

I'm puzzled as to why or how it got all those journalctl processes running,
as I thought it was a commandline app for viewing lots, and not something
the system would be running on its own.

This morning, "last" shows more or less normal-looking events, so unless
lastlog has been hacked it doesn't seem likely that there's been some
bad person in the system:

# last
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Thu Feb 12 10:24   still logged in
fredex   pts/0        192.168.2.12     Thu Feb 12 10:24   still logged in
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Feb 12 10:12   still running
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Feb 12 10:12   still running
fredex   pts/0        :0.0             Thu Feb 12 10:06 - 10:09  (00:03)
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Thu Feb 12 00:12 - 03:26  (03:13)
fredex   pts/0        192.168.2.12     Thu Feb 12 00:02 - 03:26  (03:23)
fredex   :0                            Thu Feb  5 09:14 - down  (7+00:57)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Feb  5 09:14 - 10:11 (7+00:57)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Feb  5 09:14 - 10:11 (7+00:57)
fredex   pts/0        :0.0             Thu Jan 29 18:42 - 18:50  (00:07)
fredex   :0                            Thu Jan 29 18:33 - down  (6+14:39)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Jan 29 18:32 - 09:13 (6+14:40)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Jan 29 18:32 - 09:13 (6+14:40)
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Thu Jan 29 18:16 - 18:31  (00:14)
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Mon Dec 22 09:40 - 09:41  (00:00)
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Wed Dec 10 18:11 - 18:17  (00:06)
fredex   pts/0        :0.0             Wed Dec 10 18:09 - 18:31 (50+00:22)
fredex   :0                            Wed Dec 10 18:08 - down  (50+00:22)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Dec  4 20:54 - 18:31 (55+21:37)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Thu Dec  4 20:54 - 18:31 (55+21:37)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov 19 04:54 - 18:31 (71+13:37)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov 19 04:54 - 18:31 (71+13:37)
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Thu Nov  6 22:13 - 19:34  (21:20)
fredex   pts/0        192.168.2.12     Wed Nov  5 23:44 - 19:34 (1+19:49)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov  5 23:44 - 18:31 (84+18:47)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov  5 23:44 - 18:31 (84+18:47)
fredex   pts/0        192.168.2.12     Wed Nov  5 23:38 - 23:43  (00:05)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov  5 23:38 - 23:43  (00:05)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov  5 23:38 - 23:43  (00:05)
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Wed Nov  5 23:09 - 23:37  (00:27)
fredex   pts/0        192.168.2.12     Wed Nov  5 23:08 - 23:37  (00:28)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov  5 23:08 - 23:37  (00:29)
reboot   system boot  3.14.2-200.fc20. Wed Nov  5 23:08 - 23:37  (00:29)
fredex   pts/1        192.168.2.12     Wed Nov  5 22:54 - 23:07  (00:12)
fredex   pts/0        192.168.2.12     Wed Nov  5 22:39 - 23:07  (00:27)

Anybody got any ideas?

thanks!

-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
                      The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, 
                    keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:3 (niv) -----------------------------


More information about the users mailing list