Strange Processes afoot

We have a home-grown app hat has worked on 4 different servers with no
problem. However, today one box went down. After we checked it, our app is
taking 98% of the cpu, and the weirdest thing is the process time. It is
going 4 seconds for every second. So, the box has been up 20 minutes or so,
and it shows the process as running for almost 3 hours. This is a 4-way
server, so could the 4 processors account for the time issue? No other
processes seem to be jumping ahead in time.

I ran virus scanning, and checked for a rootkit that might be trying to use
that service, and couldn't find anything. Anyways, we cant use the box since
the CPU is tapped, and no one really knows what the process is doing
exactly, so we cant just kill it. Anyone have any ideas?

Yes.

Each processor if running at 100% accounts for 1 second of CPU time. So, if
your APP is pinning all 4 CPUs at 100%, it will be accumlating 4 seconds of
CPU time for every second of real time.

Matt Gibson - GSEC

"Craig N" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:BEA0E366.389%(E-Mail Removed)...
> We have a home-grown app hat has worked on 4 different servers with no
> problem. However, today one box went down. After we checked it, our app is
> taking 98% of the cpu, and the weirdest thing is the process time. It is
> going 4 seconds for every second. So, the box has been up 20 minutes or
> so,
> and it shows the process as running for almost 3 hours. This is a 4-way
> server, so could the 4 processors account for the time issue? No other
> processes seem to be jumping ahead in time.
>
> I ran virus scanning, and checked for a rootkit that might be trying to
> use
> that service, and couldn't find anything. Anyways, we cant use the box
> since
> the CPU is tapped, and no one really knows what the process is doing
> exactly, so we cant just kill it. Anyone have any ideas?
>

Craig N wrote:
> We have a home-grown app hat has worked on 4 different servers with no
> problem. However, today one box went down. After we checked it, our
> app is taking 98% of the cpu, and the weirdest thing is the process
> time. It is going 4 seconds for every second. So, the box has been up
> 20 minutes or so, and it shows the process as running for almost 3
> hours. This is a 4-way server, so could the 4 processors account for
> the time issue? No other processes seem to be jumping ahead in time.
>
> I ran virus scanning, and checked for a rootkit that might be trying
> to use that service, and couldn't find anything. Anyways, we cant use
> the box since the CPU is tapped, and no one really knows what the
> process is doing exactly, so we cant just kill it. Anyone have any
> ideas?

If its a home grown process then surely the programmer must be able to
figure out what its up to?