Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utah.edu!zeleznik
From: zeleznik@cs.utah.edu (Mike Zeleznik)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Apollo unkillable processes
Keywords: sigp blast kill
Message-ID: <1990Sep18.195826.12462@hellgate.utah.edu>
Date: 19 Sep 90 01:58:26 GMT
References: <2414@dover.sps.mot.com>
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 34

In article <2414@dover.sps.mot.com> anderson@atc.sps.mot.com (howard anderson) writes:
>
>I really need help.  (Apollo Release 10.2 with patch m0118.)
>I am having difficulty killing certain processes. ...
>Sigp -q doesn't work.  Sigp -s doesn't work.  Sigp -b works but ...

>  2.  Has anyone else seen processes that cannot be killed with
>a sigp -s??  Perhaps I am the only Apollo user with this problem.

I have been using Apollos for over 7 years now, and processes that have
to be blasted (sigp -b) have come to be (from our experience) a fact of
life.  Though it appears to occur less often these days.

>  4.  Does anyone know what blasting processes such as these actually
>does to the operating system?? 

I don't know the specifics, but Apollo used to clearly recommend that you
reboot the node as soon as possible after blasting a process, since it
left inconsistant state in there, which would cause problems down the
line.  I don't know if they still say this.  It used to be that after
enough blasts, the OS would start to do strange things (as you have seen),
and a reboot usually cleared it all up.

There was a point a few years ago when I used to simply reboot my
workstation each morning on general principle, just to avoid having to find
the problems the hard way.  Things seem to be much more robust these days
with 10.2.

Mike

  Michael Zeleznik              Computer Science Dept.
                                University of Utah
  zeleznik@cs.utah.edu          Salt Lake City, UT  84112
                                (801) 581-5617