topic Re: defunct process in Operating System - Linux

defunct process

ossupport55 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:12:20 GMT

folks,

I have a defuct process where the PPID is 1. Anyway to get rid of it. OS is RHEL 4.6

cheers

Re: defunct process

Goran Koruga — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:24:38 GMT

Hello.

Defunct as in in state Z? Just ignore it - the process has exited but its parent process failed to run wait() or its variant for the PID. It's not doing anything anyway.

init will periodically do that and it may go away, but not always AFAIK.

Regards,
Goran

Re: defunct process

dirk dierickx — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:40:31 GMT

if it stays in your process list and you must get rid of it, there is nothing that can be done except reboot.

Re: defunct process

ossupport55 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:59:56 GMT

The process shows as Zl what does that mean.

Re: defunct process

Prashanth Waugh — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:05:40 GMT

Hi,

I think Z is showing zombie process. Zombies can be identified in the output from the Unix ps command by the presence of a â Zâ in the â STATâ column

Regards,
prashant

Re: defunct process

loco_vikide — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:11:22 GMT

Hello,

Z status stands for Defunct ("zombie") process, terminated but not reaped by its parent.

Unlike Unix, Linux periodically cleans up defunct processes without system reboot. Your defunct process will be eventually removed by OS.

Cheers

Re: defunct process

Dennis Handly — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:14:12 GMT

>I have a defunct process where the PPID is 1.

On HP-UX, this can't happen, zombies are reaped by init. I would think Linux would work the same. Are you sure this isn't a wedged process? (Hmm, you mentioned Z below.)

>loco_vikide: Your defunct process will be eventually removed by OS.

Hmm, I would have thought init would be working a little faster so you wouldn't see it.

Re: defunct process

ossupport55 — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:13:58 GMT

I managed to start another process and get the backup done. Letting the zombies take their time.

Thanks folks