Very Computer

by **Anthony Pa** » Sat, 25 Feb 1995 01:12:39

When using 'ps -aux', the application I use "series 5000" creates a bunch of <defunct> processes,
which I cannot kill. The only solution I have come up with so far is to log off, thus terminating
the defunct process. Sometimes this doesn't always work, and I have to reboot the workstation.

I've been told that a <defunct> process doesn't recognize it's parent process and cannot be killed.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

by **gordon beat** » Thu, 02 Mar 1995 00:19:57

> When using 'ps -aux', the application I use "series 5000" creates a
> bunch of <defunct> processes, which I cannot kill. The only solution
[...]
> I've been told that a <defunct> process doesn't recognize it's
> parent process and cannot be killed.

A defunct process is not a process in the normal sense - it is an
entry in the zombie list, a list of process table entries containing
accounting information and exit status for a exited processes.

So you can't kill them, because they aren't running. But they are
using up process table entries, which is not a good thing because
eventually your system will run out of them and need to be rebooted.

Quote:>Does anyone have any suggestions?

Your application is responsible for collecting the exit status etc for
all if its child processes. It can do this by calling one of the
wait(2) system calls for each child process it creates. Once this has
been done, the corresponding process table entry is removed from the
zombie list and can be reused.

/gordon

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Very Computer

DEFUNCT PROCESSES

DEFUNCT PROCESSES

DEFUNCT PROCESSES