Bad news about the Linux system monitor may be on the way

Veteran sysadmin and tech blogger Rachel Kroll posted a cryptic warning yesterday about a popular Linux system monitoring tool. Maybe it's better to be safe than sorry.

The post is titled: "You might want to stop running atop." No details, no context – just a few paragraphs that have set off alarm bells in corners of the Linux world.

Better known online as rachelbythebay, Kroll has a good reputation in the tech industry. She's wrangled servers for Facebook and Lyft, and has been a speaker at events from USEnix to Strange Loop. She's also collected some of her writing in books, which used to be on Amazon, but which you can now get, free of DRM, from the Gumroad store.

Unsurprisingly, this post has caused some excitement on techie forums such as Lobsters and Hacker News. We feel that the best summary is this one from Duncan Bayne ...