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Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 12:16:12 -0800 (PST)
From: Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org>
To: Gordon Bergling <gordon@bsd-network.org>
In-Reply-To: <20031208200906.GA49037@nemesis.md.0xfce3.net>
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cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: strange pids under heavy load (5.2-RC)
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On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Gordon Bergling wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>     0  p2  ZW+    0:00.00  (sh)
>     0  p2  ZW+    0:00.00  (sh)
>     0  p2  ZW+    0:00.00  (sh)

[...]

> is running in the background.
> 
> I am not sure about this. Maybe its a problem.

These are "Zombies" and are there becasue the parent process (possibly
pid 1) has not yet had a chance to clean them up. (due to the system
being so busy).

A Zombie process is one for which the parent has not yet called 'wait'
to retrieve the statistics, exit status, etc.