Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:6871 comp.unix.wizards:8265 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!jetson!john From: john@jetson.UUCP (John Owens) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: processes (was Re: Trouble killing processes in SysV/AT) Message-ID: <38@jetson.UUCP> Date: 5 May 88 20:49:39 GMT References: <3951@killer.UUCP> <77@lakart.UUCP> Organization: SMART HOUSE Development Venture Lines: 23 Summary: *these* are "zombie" processes In article <77@lakart.UUCP>, dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes: > did lots and lots of popen("command", "w") calls. I fired it up background, . . . > there, but so were about 40 processes marked STAT == Z, COMMAND == . . . . > TT == 0 (/dev/tty0), but the controlling TT of these defunct processes was > drifting all over hell's half acre: TT == co, then TT == h1, then TT == dx - > all for the same process! This is not the same situation. These processes have actually been killed - they have received the "9" signal and have exit-ed. The difference is that they have not been "wait"ed for by their parent process, and are considered "zombies" - only a small portion of their original information is still present. Specifically, the controlling tty is no longer present, so ps will show random values there. Mr. Paul's processes were not zombie processes - they were still "alive", just hung in a kernel sleep(), as has been so well explained. -- John Owens SMART HOUSE Development Venture john@jetson.UUCP (old uucp) uunet!jetson!john +1 301 249 6000 (internet) john%jetson.uucp@uunet.uu.net