a process killing script

[Phillip Popp]

Hi,
Really don't know any scripting. I am in the HP 10.2 enviroment. Writing in Ksh shell. I need to find all process that are defunct and delete them with a script I can put on a cron.

Can any one help.

Thanks,

Phil

[Jeff Schussele · Accepted solution]

Hi Phil,

Well...this may be a headbanger for you.
Defunct processes are also known as zombie processes and as such you need to understand they are *already* dead & can't be killed.

This would only be a problem if the number, mem size or resources these processes hold become constraining.

My 2 cents,
Jeff Schussele

[Dennis Handly]

You can't kill zombies, you can only kill the zombie master. Since this requires a judgment call, you should do this manually.
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1145648

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Phillip:

You can find "defunct" processes by running 'ps -ef' and grepping for "" or by running 'UNIX95= ps -o pid,state' and looking for pids with a "Z" state.

That said, trying to kill them isn't going to work. A defunct process is otherwise known as a "zombie". It is already dead, waiting for its parent to reap its termination status before it is removed from the kernel's process table.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Dennis Handly]

If you have no further questions for this topic you may want to consider closing the thread so everyone knows there is a solution.
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#40

[rmueller58]

ps -ef |grep -v -f /usr/local/bin/patt.1 |grep $1 > temp.1
kill -9 `awk '{print $2}' temp.1`
rm temp.1

[Suraj K Sankari]

Hi,

As I know defunct are called also zombie process which are not able to kill, you can find those process with
# ps â aef | grep â i defunct

If you see too many defunct process then better reboot the server.

Suraj

[Phillip Popp]

Thanks I have learned a lot