From owner-freebsd-bugs Mon Apr 20 07:56:12 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA06780 for freebsd-bugs-outgoing; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 07:56:12 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from zibbi.mikom.csir.co.za (zibbi.mikom.csir.co.za [146.64.24.58]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA06773 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 14:56:04 GMT (envelope-from jhay@zibbi.mikom.csir.co.za) Received: (from jhay@localhost) by zibbi.mikom.csir.co.za (8.8.8/8.8.7) id QAA10853; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 16:55:07 +0200 (SAT) From: John Hay Message-Id: <199804201455.QAA10853@zibbi.mikom.csir.co.za> Subject: Re: kern/5236 In-Reply-To: <19980420105446.AG32944@mars.hsc.fr> from Pierre Beyssac at "Apr 20, 98 10:54:46 am" To: pb@fasterix.frmug.org (Pierre Beyssac) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 16:55:07 +0200 (SAT) Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > According to Poul-Henning Kamp: > > Well, first: zombies are signs of programming errors in the parent > > process. > > System utilities (and kernel) shouldn't depend on correct user processes > programming to work reliably. > > > Second: ps doesn't give an atomic snapshot of the system, > > so it isn't an accurate view of system resources. > > Even though they are supposed to be updated atomically, the problem > is most certainly with kernel tables, ps only reflects this. I assume > top would, too, but I haven't tried it (hence the filing of my > PR in the "kern" category). > > > Third: since it > > isn't scheduled none of those awful things will happen. > > Should I understand that you would estimate the problem unsolved > if the system wasted in the name of zombies processes all the CPU > ps says they use ? By the way, what makes you think it doesn't since > you don't rely on ps ? :-) > > > Fourth: If > > you had included a patch for ps things would probably happen :-) > > Thanks, I take this to mean there's a tiny possibility my PR is not totally > useless :-), so I'll give it a try. If you work on it, just remember not to break wait(2) and its derivatives. John -- John Hay -- John.Hay@mikom.csir.co.za To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message