From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 8 11:49:26 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F19316A400 for ; Thu, 8 Mar 2007 11:49:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from modulok@gmail.com) Received: from an-out-0708.google.com (an-out-0708.google.com [209.85.132.240]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C346413C48E for ; Thu, 8 Mar 2007 11:49:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from modulok@gmail.com) Received: by an-out-0708.google.com with SMTP id c24so405391ana for ; Thu, 08 Mar 2007 03:49:25 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; b=k8oVHqUqSm1+1JsudKKcx6Nyw2sj6r1Lqouu6WHIkmH77ys17W/WqRl4Zlm0lzG6eQZu2/9mn2Xp51dIAaWBPbc40mQKzkFS1WLygkN1qXBRGqeiSdzSPbLau333JR0LtigYDWTq1jGr52CgrAB0VeilzlDDT45v/EvH1a51hXs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; b=RwuhBWHND9NiV+1Q0gpgioAbo4yl0eavp+Co0SOMhbvOLkQeJGqBYoIl3oYi5+EocRMsyBlar8aPITT5Fli+wafrfXslqwOB6rFQ7ekwqgF/RyFQmzsDhtrraYPK9Cw02ZNsEumeML9i5UBxJJLuhv74rxrJ2zhMod2r5Mc/zpw= Received: by 10.100.141.13 with SMTP id o13mr144212and.1173354564914; Thu, 08 Mar 2007 03:49:24 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.100.198.6 with HTTP; Thu, 8 Mar 2007 03:49:24 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <64c038660703080349t3311fa22lf8e6ba736db330ed@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 04:49:24 -0700 From: Modulok To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Subject: Kill a hanged disk i/o process... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:49:26 -0000 To the best of my knowledge, most processes can be killed explicitly by "kill -s KILL;" There are a few which cannot, such as disk i/o processes. The idea here is data integrity. On the rare occasion however, (when attempting to recover data from corrupt disks for example), I've had a process invoked by the "cp" command, hang. This poses a significant problem as these processes are disk i/o processes, and as such cannot be terminated (even by root). So, other than physically hitting the reset button on the case, is there a more eloquent method of forcefully halting a hanged disk i/o process? The idea of "you don't want to terminate a disk i/o process, it could corrupt the data" isn't really a good argument, because if the process hangs and I have to punch the reset button anyway what's the difference? Ideas? -Modulok-