Best way to locate and kill a zombie

[John Jimenez]

While running top, there is one zombie running. What is the best way to locate this "PID", so I can kill it?

[Ralph Grothe · Accepted solution]

I'm afraid, I think you won't be able to kill, because the Zombie is waiting for its parent process to fetch its exit code through a wait() or waitpid() syscall by the parent.

However, you can get the PID from the process table if you grep for the string "defunct"

e.g.

ps -ef|grep defu

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Do a "ps -ef|grep defunct".

-Sri

[Patrick Wallek]

top shows the PIDs of processes. The 3rd column of the top output is the PID. However, it the process truly is a zombie, then you probably won't be able to kill it. Why? BECAUSE IT'S ALREADY DEAD!!!! To quote from an HP Performance expert.

[Helen French]

You can find out the PID from top itself or from grep' ing with 'defunct. But you cannot kill those processes since it's already dead. The best way to get rid of those processes is to reboot the system!

[John Jimenez]

Thanks, I greped "defun" and it found it.
# ps -ef | grep defu
root 3047 2718 3 Feb 15 ? 0:00
root 9189 969 0 09:39:11 ttyvb 0:00 grep defu

It has actually been a long time since I have seen a zombie. As I remember I thought that I can just kill this "PID"? if not how would I get rid of it?

[John Jimenez]

Okay, I will not worry about it, I will just let the reboot take care of it. thanks a lot....

[melvyn burnard]

Sorry to dissappoint you, but he only way to get rid of a zombie process is to rebot.
You cannot kill what is already dead.
In the words of John Cleese, from hte pqrrot sketch in Monty Python:
It is an ex-parrot, it has ceased to be, it is no more.
It's DEAD

[Helen French]

Read this for more information about defunct processes TKB #S1100000464:

http://support2.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en_US&docId=200000063236571

[Pete Randall]

John,

What is the parent process? Do a "ps -ef |grep 2718". I would have expected a zombie to be owned by init (PID 1).

Pete