who with -T option hangs

[jok llamera]

hi fellas,

Any idea what's the problem why command "who -T" hangs. I can successufully used other options other than -T. I have a cronjob that is running with content of who -HT command, and now I couldn't kill it also using kill option 1,3,15,9.

Im using HPUX11.0 N-Class machine.

Thanks,
joks

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

who -Hu outputs similarly as who -HT. Can you try executing:

# who -Hu

and see if that also hangs?

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong
Brainbench MVP for Unix Admin
http://www.brainbench.com

[jok llamera]

hi steven,

I need some help on how to clear this more than 200 processes of who -HT that is hanging and clogging my system(load average of 33 -- very high). My problem is I can't kill it any more. I think only a reboot can wipe it out.

Thanks,
joks

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Joks,

If you have processes on your system that cannot be killer, you have to reboot the system. That is the onlt choice.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

Try to kill its parent process. Try to kill its child processes. Then kill the process itself after terminating the parent and/or children processes. If that does not work, reboot is the last resort.

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong
Brainbench MVP for Unix Admin
http://www.brainbench.com

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

The -T option is risky in a production machine as it must wait on I/O to determine line state and with network connections, many may have been trashed in the past causing who -T to wait for a status that will never arrive. As with all programs that wait on I/O that will never complete, these programs cannot be killed, even with kill -9. Actually, they will terminate once the I/O completes, but that is the problem.

If you are not interested in the line status but need the connection name, try using -R instead of -T.