Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 06:28:04 -0700 From: Modulok <modulok@gmail.com> To: "Nikos Vassiliadis" <nvass@teledomenet.gr> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kill a hanged disk i/o process... Message-ID: <64c038660703090528k6974a8c3odf87e4d8a3b368c9@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <200703091139.51272.nvass@teledomenet.gr> References: <64c038660703080349t3311fa22lf8e6ba736db330ed@mail.gmail.com> <200703091139.51272.nvass@teledomenet.gr>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Thank you for your reply, it was quite informative and very much appreciated, but the underlying question remains un-answered: How do you kill a hanged process that (seemingly) cannot be killed because of the two conditions below? -It's hanged, so it's not ever going to self terminate. -It's a disk i/o process so not even root can kill it. The gentle shutdown solution doesn't work: Even during shutdown the process cannot be killed: it's hanged, it's disk i/o. How do you kill an un-killable process? -Modulok- On 3/9/07, Nikos Vassiliadis <nvass@teledomenet.gr> wrote: > > On Thursday 08 March 2007 13:49, Modulok wrote: > > 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. > > A process might be in cannot-be-killed condition while > in kernel e.g. during a system call. That has to do with > the completion of the system call, not with data integrity. > The kernel tries to complete what was asked for. > > Also, Killing a process with SIGKILL is far from safe. To put > it in another way "data integrity" can be guaranteed only > by the program itself. For example it could have a defined > behavior when it is signaled by e.g. SIGTERM, for example > clean up data and exit. Or not. It's up to the programmer. > Sending a SIGKILL will not give that chance. SIGKILL can > not be handled. It will be terminated as soon as possible. > > Also, separate the meanings "data integrity" and "filesystem > data integrity". The filesystem will be in fine condition when > a process gets killed by SIGKILL during file I/O, the data in > the file most probably not. > > > > > 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? > > "Pressing the button" will leave your filesystem in a undefined state, > you are risking filesystem integrity. Keep in mind that while in use > (open files etc) a filesystem cannot be unmounted. Anyway, try to shut > the computer down, it's far more gentle than pressing the button. At > least the rest of the filesystems will be cleanly unmounted. > > Is there something in particular you want to achieve? > > Nikos >
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?64c038660703090528k6974a8c3odf87e4d8a3b368c9>