top
-o cpu to order the process list by CPU utilization, I found
that AgentService was frequently using more than 90%
of the CPU cycles, which explained why the system was so slow to respond for
even simple tasks.$ top -o cpu Processes: 173 total, 3 running, 7 stuck, 163 sleeping, 781 threads 15:58:16 Load Avg: 2.13, 1.95, 1.99 CPU usage: 55.59% user, 11.96% sys, 32.43% idle SharedLibs: 900K resident, 0B data, 0B linkedit. MemRegions: 96419 total, 1801M resident, 28M private, 386M shared. PhysMem: 942M wired, 1591M active, 1531M inactive, 4064M used, 31M free. VM: 380G vsize, 1026M framework vsize, 31190567(2) pageins, 12910631(0) pageout Networks: packets: 23513697/7131M in, 30071009/20G out. Disks: 25421824/697G read, 12021331/385G written. PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #WQ #POR #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE 79- AgentService 97.6 37:50:29 9/1 1 84 132 1164K 1132K 2604K 56859 top 19.1 00:01.00 1/1 0 24 33 1884K 216K 2632K 54855 WebProcess 11.8 56:42.09 14 5 302 37509 1294M+ 110M- 1364M+ 46390- Microsoft En 1.8 06:33:59 15 3 369 1740 79M+ 59M- 134M 0 kernel_task 1.2 08:03:27 82/2 0 2 1103 41M 0B 494M 107 WindowServer 1.0 15:07:04 4 1 796 19878+ 14M- 226M+ 172M+ 15477 soffice 0.8 07:00:18 6 3 108 576 812K 3276K 3036K 55260 PluginProces 0.8 08:41.77 23 3 304 2228 50M+ 38M- 69M 20901 Safari 0.7 01:40:04 14 3 525 3192 29M+ 32M- 55M 346 distnoted 0.6 03:05:47 6 5 156 51 4952K 752K 5260K 360 Network Util 0.4 03:26:25 2 1 113 110 1384K 5576K 3884K 811 Terminal 0.4 16:03.61 5 1 213 822 41M 9360K 78M 437- My Day 0.3 96:12.20 6 1 169 405 12M+ 22M 26M+ 2037- Microsoft Ex 0.2 01:53:03 5 3 199 1800 14M 54M 52M 25 distnoted 0.2 59:48.34 5 4 117 45 924K 752K 1244K 56746- Microsoft Wo 0.1 39:07.66 4 2 159 814 3032K 35M 27M 46396- Microsoft Po 0.1 52:14.66 4 2 157 912 2060K 33M 17M 363- AdobeReader 0.1 33:32.69 12 5 160 573 1496K 9532K 3568K 485- Microsoft Da 0.0 71:20.21 3 1 108 218 21M 13M 32M
When I checked the location for AgentService on the system, I saw the following:
$ sudo find / -name AgentService Password: find: /dev/fd/3: Not a directory find: /dev/fd/4: Not a directory /Library/AgentService /Library/AgentService/AgentService /Library/Application Support/AgentService
At boot time, the root launchd process
will scan the daemon directories /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
and /Library/LaunchDaemons for job definitions it uses to
launch "daemons",
i.e., programs running in the background that don't require user input, and
"agents", which are similar to daemons for launchd, though run on behalf of the
logged in user, whereas daemons are run on behalf of the root or some other
specified user. When I checked the /Library/LaunchDaemons
directory, I found the following:
$ ls -l /Library/LaunchDaemons | grep AgentService -rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 780 Sep 30 2013 AgentService.plist
When I viewed the AgentService.plist file,
I saw a reference to com.ironmountain.agentservice. An
AgentService.exe file is part of the
Iron Mountain Connected BackupPC application on Microsoft
Windows systems - see
What is
AgentService.exe?. And the
Wikipedia
article on Iron Mountain states:
On May 16, 2011, Iron Mountain decided to divest its technology arm, "Iron Mountain Digital", which was acquired by the British enterprise search and knowledge management firm Autonomy corporation for $380 million. Shortly thereafter, in August 2011, Hewlett-Packard acquired the Cambridge based Autonomy, and amalgamated the operations of Autonomy (which included Iron Mountain Digital) into HP's enterprise software division.
I found a "Connected Backup" application in the Applications/Autonomy folder on the system:
$ ls -l /Applications/Autonomy/Connected\ Backup total 0 drwxrwxr-x 3 502 admin 102 Sep 30 2013 Connected Backup.app drwxrwxr-x 3 502 admin 102 Sep 30 2013 Uninstall Connected Backup.app
Clicking on the Connected Backup.app file within the OS
X Finder, I saw it was version 14.2.4.0094 of the app.
When I looked in the
/Applications/Autonomy/Connected Backup/Connected Backup.app/Contents/Info.plist
file for a reference to AgentService, I saw the following:
$ grep AgentService "/Applications/Autonomy/Connected Backup/Connected Backup.app/Contents/Info.plist" <string>/Library/Application Support/AgentService</string>
Since the Wikipedia article on Iron Mountain Corporation stated that the company sold their technology arm "Iron Mountain Digital" to Autonomy Corporation in 2011 and that HP later acquired Autonomy Corporation shortly thereafter that same year, I checked HP's site for information on Connected Backup and found the following:
HP Connected Backup helps you eliminate the risk of user data loss from enterprise desktops and laptops. With anywhere secure access to protected data, your mobile workforce can remain productive while reducing the cost and risk associated with compliance and eDiscovery requirements.
I thought the application might be backing up files on the system,
but when I checked on what files the AgentService process might
have open with lsof -p 79, since the process id (PID) for the
process was 79, none were listed.
$ lsof -p 79 $
I checked several times over an hour, but no files were ever listed, so
I killed the AgentService process with
sudo kill -kill 79, since the excessive CPU utilization by
the process was making the system perform horribly. Once I did that,
the fan noise decreased and the system became much more responsive.
Created: Monday June 8, 2015