# Gem malfunction

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-malfunction/135470>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 22, 2008, 3:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-malfunction/135470 "2008-04-22T15:07:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alby)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 3:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-malfunction/135470/1 "2008-04-22T15:07:36Z")

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Sometimes, when I use ‘gem’ to install a package, say ‘sudo gem install  
dbi’, gem uses up all my memory and CPU, and, if I can’t manage to  
arrive at a terminal and do ‘sudo killall -9 ruby’, I’m left with no  
choice but reboot my Ubuntu box.

I’m using Ruby 1.8, gem 0.9.0.

I tried with the ‘–debug’ switch, but it writes nothing while it’s  
“stuck”.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alby)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-malfunction/135470/2 "2008-04-22T15:10:04Z")

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I should mention that it prints:

“Bulk updating Gem source index for: [http://gems.rubyforge.org](http://gems.rubyforge.org)”

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**Author:** ![alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alby)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 10:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-malfunction/135470/3 "2008-04-22T22:33:32Z")

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On Apr 22, 2008, at 06:07 AM, Albert S. wrote:

> Sometimes, when I use ‘gem’ to install a package, say ‘sudo gem  
> install  
> dbi’, gem uses up all my memory and CPU, and, if I can’t manage to  
> arrive at a terminal and do ‘sudo killall -9 ruby’, I’m left with no  
> choice but reboot my Ubuntu box.
> 
> I’m using Ruby 1.8, gem 0.9.0.

Upgrade your RubyGems. 0.9.0 has a security vulnerability that allows  
a malicious gem to overwrite any file on your filesystem.