Unable to kill a process as root

[Admin.SIF]

We currently have 3 processes from NMS (Netscape Mail Server) which are freeze and I can't delete them, even if I use "kill -9" or "kill -3". Also, one of those 3 processes have a related to it.

How it is possible and how can I take those process down. Since there are up, I'm unable to completly close the NMS server and restart it properly.

[Alan Riggs]

processes which are hung on I/O will not respond to a kill, even by root. processes can be cleared only by a reboot.

[Madhu Sudhan_1]

If you can use glance plus to view at what this process is doing ? - to start of.
Basically even root can't kill a process that is in kernel priority mode.

Thanks,
...Madhu

[Admin.SIF]

Madhu, what do you means about "what the process do"? If you know NMS a little, those process are the "POP3" and "SMTP" deamons of the Netscape Mailing Server (NMS). The 3rd one is the command "stored" (to clean up the deleted mails from the NMS Database).

From Glance Plus - Process ressource window, the POP3 and the SMTP have those informations:
Scheduler: HPUX
Priority: 152
Nice Value: 20
Wait Reason: IPC
Except for the user, everything else is zero.
For the "stored" process:
Scheduler: HPUX
Priority: 138
Nice Value: 20
Wait Reason: SYSTM
Is it what you ask me ?

[Madhu Sudhan_1]

I meant whether the process is waiting for some I/O or IPC.... Reboot may be the easiest way to come out. But I would try using ipcrm to release the memory reserved by this process and then try to kill the process.

...Madhu

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi,

As Alan told you, the only way to get rid of a process is a system reboot.
A bit rough, isn't it ?

The 2 other processes are system I/O hung and there's not much you can do either (see Wait Reason: SYSTM).

The reboot will cure the 3 issues for the same price ;-)

Best regards,

Dan

[Shannon Petry]

The only other thing you can try (i have had some success with omniback, and a few other things...) is to use lsof to see where it is hung. If it is hung up on lets say a rm process, you can kill that, then kill netscape whatever. It is not always worthwile to investigate because there is a very small percentage chance that it will work.

Regards,
Shannon

[Alan Nicholson]

Although it is largely true that you cannot kill processes, I have found that they quite often die if you can identify and kill their parent processes. Unfortunately the parent process is often init (PID 1), so a reboot is your only option.

[Admin.SIF]

After many tries and a call to HP Support, we finaly reboot the server. Thanks for all hints. I will keep then in case it append again.

[Suhas_2]

Hi,
See reboot is not the best option.
You shoild have tried the following
kill -17
kill -17 .....

That is the best option....

Hope this helps....

Suhas Oka.