Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!ihlpl!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os9
Subject: Re: Help with OS-9 Kernel
Summary: Blasting corpses?
Keywords: condemed process status
Message-ID: <7609@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Date: 11 Nov 88 17:39:43 GMT
References: <292@bsovax.UUCP> <834@mcrware.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 28

Maybe you can help with a fundamental design problem of OS9.
There are certain processes that just can't be killed or even
made to shut down.  Often the XCom9 terminal program will get
hung because ACIAPAK driver screws up (yes, we all know that
driver is obsolete and replacements are available).

You can go to another window and KILL the xcom9 process.
But not only does it not die, it goes into a tight
loop of system calls (as measured by the increased sparklies
snow on the Coco-3 screen).

The "zombie" shows status 128.  It won't die because it has
open I/O to ACIAPAK, and you can't close or de-iniz /T2
because it has a process open to it.  So this stalemate
keeps the process from being killed, and also
ties up your RS232 pak.  So hit the button and re-boot.

(Sometimes you can kill the process by de-inizing its window
or unlinking it several times.  Other times this crashes
the system.)

I heard that someone (Kevin Darling?) wrote a "Blast" utility
that will silver-bullte kill anything and break the stalemate.
Anyone try this?
-- 
Mike Knudsen  Bell Labs(AT&T)   att!ihlpl!knudsen
"Lawyers are like nuclear bombs and PClones.  Nobody likes them,
but the other guy's got one, so I better get one too."