From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jun 27 14:02:35 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA25636 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:02:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from who.cdrom.com (who.cdrom.com [204.216.27.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA25631 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:02:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by who.cdrom.com (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id OAA06231 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:02:13 -0700 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id aq14221; 27 Jun 96 21:54 +0100 Received: from jraynard.demon.co.uk ([158.152.42.77]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa00271; 27 Jun 96 21:00 +0100 Received: (from fqueries@localhost) by jraynard.demon.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA05522; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 17:29:33 GMT Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 17:29:33 GMT Message-Id: <199606271729.RAA05522@jraynard.demon.co.uk> From: James Raynard To: info@adn.edu.ph CC: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-reply-to: (message from Information Help Desk on Thu, 27 Jun 1996 13:58:59 +1000 (GMT+1000)) Subject: Re: trouble for process to be terminated Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > What's the last resort besides rebooting after killing a process > that still lives but is trying to exit? Are you referring to a "zombie" process - one where a child process exits before its parent and the parent doesn't clean up after it properly (by calling wait())? It's not as bad as it seems, as the process has actually exited, releasing all the memory it was using and closing any files it had open, etc. All it's taking up is an entry in the process table. On the other hand, it effectively reduces the number of processes you can run by one, and makes the ps output look untidy. This is usually the result of a programming mistake - or the parent may be blocking on a resource which never becomes available. Perhaps if you can post some details about which program causes the problem, and how it happens, we may be able to give a more helpful answer. -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland james@jraynard.demon.co.uk