multiplying defunct processes

[Evelyn Daroga]

We patched the system (HPUX B.11.00 U 9000/800) last weekend (after several years) and the process we have always used to kill users still logged in is suddenly causing rapidly multiplying defunct processes.

The shell script that runs nightly basically does this:
1. Find all â kshâ processes and kill the ppid and pid (kill â 9 ppid pid)
2. Find any remaining processes locally attached to the Oracle db and kill the ppid and pid.
3. Find any remaining processes non-locally attached to the Oracle db and kill the ppid and pid.

In June, we stopped executing the first step, and only looked for processes actually attached to the db and killed them. No problems. After hitting this problem this week, the first step was reinstated, and then altered to only kill the ppid (not the pid) of the â kshâ process, but that did not help. Here is a summary of what happens (word doc also attached, for better formatting):

â Normalâ user session:
root 4095 955 0 08:59:28 pts/tad 0:00 telnetd
upmay 4096 4095 0 08:59:30 pts/tad 0:05 -ksh
upmay 17366 4096 0 12:08:27 pts/tad 0:07 quick subdict=search auto=/uk_home/jervis/v63yoln/MENUGO.qkg
upmay 17382 17366 0 12:08:29 ? 0:00 oracleUK (DESCRIPTION=(LOCAL=YES)(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=beq)))

Now the kill script kicks in:
upmay 4096 1 1 08:59:30 ? 0:05 -ksh
upmay 1918 1 0 19:01:44 ? 0:00
upmay 2362 4096 0 19:01:45 ? 0:00 -ksh

And 10 seconds later:
upmay 4096 1 1 08:59:30 ? 0:05 -ksh
upmay 7649 1 0 19:02:06 ? 0:00

And about 20 seconds later:
upmay 4096 1 0 08:59:30 ? 0:05 -ksh
upmay 7651 1 1 19:02:06 ? 0:00
upmay 7649 1 0 19:02:06 ? 0:00
upmay 9016 4096 0 19:02:11 ? 0:00
upmay 9493 1 0 19:02:13 ? 0:00
upmay 9492 1 0 19:02:13 ? 0:00
upmay 11412 1 1 19:02:21 ? 0:00
upmay 11411 1 0 19:02:21 ? 0:00
upmay 13228 1 1 19:02:28 ? 0:00
upmay 16543 1 0 19:02:41 ? 0:00
upmay 13156 1 0 19:02:27 ? 0:00
upmay 13624 1 2 19:02:29 ? 0:00
upmay 13623 1 0 19:02:29 ? 0:00
upmay 17020 1 1 19:02:42 ? 0:00
upmay 15600 1 2 19:02:37 ? 0:00
upmay 17935 1 1 19:02:46 ? 0:00
upmay 15527 1 1 19:02:37 ? 0:00
upmay 16946 1 0 19:02:42 ? 0:00
upmay 18311 1 0 19:02:47 ? 0:00
upmay 18415 1 3 19:02:48 ? 0:00
upmay 16616 1 0 19:02:41 ? 0:00
upmay 20387 1 0 19:02:55 ? 0:00
upmay 20472 1 1 19:02:56 ? 0:00
upmay 23532 1 0 19:03:07 ? 0:00
upmay 23531 1 1 19:03:07 ? 0:00

These processes continue to multiply until the process table is filled. This seems to happen only when the kill script is run at 7:00pm each night. I can kill a user session from the unix prompt in exactly the same manner and cannot seem to reproduce this problem. Any ideas, anyone ????

[Evelyn Daroga]

Re-posted under Sys. Admin.
Closing this one.