I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 and every so often something starts running which
uses a significant amount of CPU and network access. I can't work out
what it is because it's "niced" and top excludes nice when sorting apps
by CPU usage, and I can't find a way to make it include nice. Can anyone
recommend a similar tool to top which isn't so helpful to potential
malware?

-- 
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

In 
Tony Houghton  wrote:

> I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 and every so often something starts running
> which uses a significant amount of CPU and network access. I can't
> work out what it is because it's "niced" and top excludes nice when
> sorting apps by CPU usage, and I can't find a way to make it include
> nice. Can anyone recommend a similar tool to top which isn't so
> helpful to potential malware?

I was a bit wrong about this. If I try running a busy loop with nice,
top does show it as using loads of CPU, so top isn't excluding nice,
there's something extra "special" about this mystery task.

Going back to Debian is definitely a "when", not an "if", the only
decision is whether to wait until I've solved this mystery.

-- 
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

Tony Houghton  wrote:
> I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 and every so often something starts running which
> uses a significant amount of CPU and network access. I can't work out
> what it is because it's "niced" and top excludes nice when sorting apps
> by CPU usage, and I can't find a way to make it include nice. Can anyone
> recommend a similar tool to top which isn't so helpful to potential
> malware?
> 
Top can be told to sort based on any field...
You could try sorting the nice field...

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|                          | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | operating system originally  coded for a 4 bit |
|            in            |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
|     Computer Science     |        can't stand 1 bit of competition.       |

Tony Houghton wrote:
> In 
> Tony Houghton  wrote:
> 
>> I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 and every so often something starts running
>> which uses a significant amount of CPU and network access. I can't
>> work out what it is because it's "niced" and top excludes nice when
>> sorting apps by CPU usage, and I can't find a way to make it include
>> nice. Can anyone recommend a similar tool to top which isn't so
>> helpful to potential malware?
> 
> I was a bit wrong about this. If I try running a busy loop with nice,
> top does show it as using loads of CPU, so top isn't excluding nice,
> there's something extra "special" about this mystery task.

Have you tried the 'i' (idle) toggle when running top? That should show
all processes running on your machine.

Alternatively, you can use ps to list all jobs and sort by cpu usage. ps
is the worst example of a *nix program as the options depend on what
system you're on what format you specify the options in. Anyway on my
Mandriva box, this incantation seems to give the desired effect:

ps aux --sort pcpu

HTH