A runaway process is a computer program that is not doing any useful work. For example, suppose you were logged into a Unix machine from your home, and you lost power at home. It is possible that the programs you were running on the Unix machine are still executing, even though you no longer have a connection to the machine. These processes can execute indefinitely, taking up valuable computer resources. Therefore, it is important that you kill (terminate) any runaway processes that you created. Look here for instructions.