Re: is killing zombies possible w/o a reboot?

[Bill Davidsen]

DervishD wrote:
>     Hi Gene :)
>
>  * Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@xxxxxxxxxxx> dixit:
>
> > >   Then the children are reparented to 'init' and 'init' gets rid
> > > of them. That's the way UNIX behaves.
> >
> > Unforch, I've *never* had it work that way.  Any dead process I've 
> > ever had while running linux has only been disposable by a reboot.
>
>
>     Well, you know, shit happens... Anyway, could you define 'dead'?
> Because if you're talking about zombies whose parent dies, they're
> killable easily: just wait until init reaps them (usually in less
> than 5 minutes since they dead). If you are talking about zombies who
> has their parent alive, then it's a bug in the application, not the
> kernel. In fact I wouldn't like if the kernel reaps my children
> before I do, just in case I want to do something.
>
>     If you're talking about unkillable processes (those stuck in
> disk-sleep state), you're right: only rebooting can kill them
> (although sometimes they go out of D state and die normally). Bad
> luck for you if any dead process you've ever had while running linux
> has been of this kind :(

That often seems to be the case, the kernel thinks there's an i/o going 
on which isn't, and doesn't time it out. It would be nice if there were 
a way to get the kernel to abort all outstanding i/o on kill -9, but I'm 
sure if it were easy it would have happened. Timeouts in the application 
are useful, but in some cases I believe the process dies because it 
detects a long i/o time but has nothing to do but terminate, which 
creates the zombie.

--
   -bill davidsen (davidsen@xxxxxxx)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
 last possible moment - but no longer"  -me
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