5.11. Runaway processes

Runaway processes come in two flavors: user processes that consume excessive amounts of a system resource, such as CPU time or disk space, and system processes that suddenly go berserk and exhibit wild behavior. The first type of runaway is not necessarily malfunctioning; it might simply be a resource hog. System processes are always supposed to behave reasonably.

See page 1131 for more information about runaway processes.