Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: optilink!sumits350!dongre@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Sumit Dongre)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Help : <exiting> cannot be killed
Message-ID: <897@sumits350.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 89 10:26:47 GMT
References: <8901201938.AA09663@bottom.ultra.com>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: 3 Feb 89 19:48:32 GMT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 153, message 5 of 16

ultra!ted@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Ted Schroeder) writes:
> > Try killing the process's parent....--wnl
> There's no way to get rid of those except to reboot the machine.  --wnl

Come on computer people....even the movies can kill zombies.....

...ok..ok..I'll find a way...but...I need some help...  question...given a
process id of the child...can I locate the process control
structure...(probably yes)...then using that pointer and knowing the
structure of the control structure....AND NOT HAVING SOURCE CODE...can I
change the STATE for the process (probably TW : terminated and swapped )
to whatever...thus letting the kill command clean up nicely....

how about you guys at "sun"...there's just got to be a way...

[[ But will it clean up properly?  If it is stuck waiting for an output
queue to flush (a typical stuck-in-zombie scenario), simply changing a
number in the proc structure so that you can get rid of the process might
not take care of all the problems.  The terminal line (or pseudo tty)
might just remain stuck if you're lucky.  If you're not lucky, the system
could very well panic further down the road.  Perhaps I'm just naive about
Unix internals, but I think what you propose is pretty risky.  --wnl ]]