From owner-freebsd-stable Wed Sep 6 10:57:27 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from point.osg.gov.bc.ca (point.osg.gov.bc.ca [142.32.102.44]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48E9A37B422 for ; Wed, 6 Sep 2000 10:57:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by point.osg.gov.bc.ca (8.8.7/8.8.8) id KAA31111; Wed, 6 Sep 2000 10:57:16 -0700 Received: from passer.osg.gov.bc.ca(142.32.110.29) via SMTP by point.osg.gov.bc.ca, id smtpda31109; Wed Sep 6 10:57:04 2000 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by passer.osg.gov.bc.ca (8.9.3/8.9.1) id KAA64942; Wed, 6 Sep 2000 10:57:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cwsys9.cwsent.com(10.2.2.1), claiming to be "cwsys.cwsent.com" via SMTP by passer9.cwsent.com, id smtpde64938; Wed Sep 6 10:56:37 2000 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by cwsys.cwsent.com (8.11.0/8.9.1) id e86Huaa75647; Wed, 6 Sep 2000 10:56:36 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200009061756.e86Huaa75647@cwsys.cwsent.com> Received: from localhost.cwsent.com(127.0.0.1), claiming to be "cwsys" via SMTP by localhost.cwsent.com, id smtpdP75641; Wed Sep 6 10:55:39 2000 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 Reply-To: Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group From: Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group X-OS: FreeBSD 4.1-RELEASE X-Sender: cy To: Vivek Khera Cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: running lyris for linux makes many zombies In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 06 Sep 2000 13:03:14 EDT." <14774.30930.120103.685216@onceler.kciLink.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 10:55:39 -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <14774.30930.120103.685216@onceler.kciLink.com>, Vivek Khera writes: > On a FreeBSD 4.1-S cvsup'd yesterday, I'm running Lyris 4.0 for linux > (with the security patches installed). I had been running this on a > RedHat 6.0 system quite well, but I'd rather rid myself of that system > ;-) > > Anyhow, I'm getting *lots* of zombie processes being left around after > processing a few messages, and the number keeps growing. This did not > happen on the "real" linux system. > > Is there some knob I can turn on in the linux compatibility system to > get the zombies to be reaped properly? I have COMPAT_LINUX defined in > my kernel so the linux compat is statically linked into the kernel. Lyris is failing to issue a wait(2) call to obtain the exit status of children that have terminated. The kernel will keep a a process table entry for the terminated child until the exit status has been fetched by its parent. My guess the reason Linux doesn't have any zombies is that the Linux init(8) is getting involved to fetch the status and clean up after the application. This is not standard UNIX. What FreeBSD is doing, e.g. nothing as it's an application issue, is the correct thing to do. IIRC, there are some differences between SYSV and BSD in this regard, though I cannot remember the details and I don't have Stevens' book here to reference. Regards, Phone: (250)387-8437 Cy Schubert Fax: (250)387-5766 Team Leader, Sun/DEC Team Internet: Cy.Schubert@osg.gov.bc.ca Open Systems Group, ITSD, ISTA Province of BC To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message