Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 17:36:35 +0200 From: "Ronald Klop" <ronald-lists@klop.ws> To: "Chris H" <bsd-lists@bsdforge.com>, "John Baldwin" <jhb@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-hackers <hackers@freebsd.org>, freebsd-stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Process handlers, and zombies, or preap(1) Message-ID: <op.xdm9m9mskndu52@ronaldradial.radialsg.local> In-Reply-To: <201404011110.31723.jhb@freebsd.org> References: <26dbb84bafaf0114cb75c3fbe060d412.authenticated@ultimatedns.net> <201404010941.33741.jhb@freebsd.org> <c28e389b7ebf9a778367e7f59d018222.authenticated@ultimatedns.net> <201404011110.31723.jhb@freebsd.org>
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On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 17:10:31 +0200, John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> wrote: > On Tuesday, April 01, 2014 10:28:02 am Chris H wrote: >> > On Monday, March 31, 2014 4:06:43 pm Chris H wrote: >> >> Greetings, >> >> I'm evaluating/experimenting on releng_9. The install, and now >> >> custom kernel have noting exotic, or anything out of the ordinary. >> >> top(1), and ps(1) indicate a (1) zombie, or <defunct> process. On >> >> my releng_8 systems, when I occasionally encounter one of these, >> >> they soon disappear (are reaped) from the process table. While I >> >> have not investigated this far enough on both versions to determine >> >> whether the parent process reaped the child on the releng_8 systems, >> >> and the parent on releng_9 is simply an irresponsible parent, eg; >> >> a different parent. Before I do, I was wondering if there was any >> >> specific difference between the 2 versions that might cause better >> >> handling of such situations. While I recognize that resource >> >> starvation is HIGHLY unlikely, except by perhaps a rouge parent >> >> spawning multitudes of zombies. I thought it might be useful for >> >> "housekeeping" to 1) provide a process table housekeeper (zombie >> >> reaper), or 2) create a system utility/command like SunOS/OpenSolaris >> >> has; preap(1). >> >> >> >> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=preap&manpath=SunOS+5.10 >> >> >> >> Thank you for your time, and consideration. >> > >> > Nothing is different with child processes in 9 vs 8. It is most >> > likely a misbehaving parent (or the parent is stuck or hung). >> >> Hello, John, and thank you for the reply. >> Right you are. Julian Elischer was kind enough to remind me that >> ps -alx >> would give me the information I needed to find the seemingly >> "lazy" parent process. But not before I had already (re)created >> a (Free)BSD version of preap(1), and cleared the entry from the >> proc table. >> However, it re-appeared again. So this time I traced it to it's >> parent, and now I can deal with it /properly/. It's an old port >> who's development was taken over by a Windows developer. So he >> doesn't have access to the *NIX-isms. I'll see if I can find >> the time to coordinate some effort(s) to clean it up, or branch >> a NIX version. >> >> Thank you /very/ much for addressing my original question. > > sysutils/pstree from ports can also be useful for figuring this > sort of thing out btw. > or 'ps axd'
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