[gobolinux-users] darn.

[Isaac Dupree]

mpb wrote:
> On Dec 30, 2007 4:41 PM, Isaac Dupree <isaacdupree at charter.net> wrote:
> 
>> There are some things that seem like Unix concept bugs: impossible to
>> get rid of without rebooting: like some processes refusing to be killed,
>> and become <defunct> even if you do, and you can't `wait` for them
>> because they're not this shell's child.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure if the following information addresses your "unkillable
> process concept-bug", but it might.
> 
>>From `man wait`:
> 
> NOTES
>        A child that terminates, but has not been waited for  becomes  a  "zom-
>        bie".  The kernel maintains a minimal set of information about the zom-
>        bie process (PID, termination status, resource  usage  information)  in
>        order to allow the parent to later perform a wait to obtain information
>        about the child.  As long as a zombie is not removed  from  the  system
>        via  a wait, it will consume a slot in the kernel process table, and if
>        this table fills, it will not be possible to create further  processes.
>        If a parent process terminates, then its "zombie" children (if any) are
>        adopted by init(8), which automatically performs a wait to  remove  the
>        zombies.
> 
> So, as long as the parent is alive, defunct children will be kept around.

thanks for explaining it!  I wonder how I find out what process is its 
parent... maybe `pstree` will do.  `pstree -hGpu` is pretty sweet actually.

Isaac