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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!uwvax!dave
From: dave@uwvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: can <exiting> processes on 4.2bsd be killed?
Message-ID: <197@uwvax.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 09:51:39 EST
Article-I.D.: uwvax.197
Posted: Thu Apr 12 09:51:39 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 20:35:51 EST
References: <2032@usceast.UUCP>
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 14

Remember, <exiting> processes are in the zombie state -- they died, but their
parent has decided to ignore them (if an <exiting> process's parent is 
process 1, you have a problem).  I see these all the time.  The culprit? 
comsat (that thing that tells you have mail when you do 'biff y').  I do
wish comsat would let its children die.  If the hanging processes are not
comsat's children, you may have to look at messed up hardware (most commonly
tty stuff -- disk problems can also leave <exiting> processes around).

Dave Cohrs @ wisconsin
-- 

Dave Cohrs
...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!dave
dave@wisc-rsch.arpa