On 14Sep2011 15:45, Josh Miller <joshua@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: | On 09/14/2011 03:37 PM, Cameron Simpson wrote: | >Then it is not a zombie. Zombies are exited processes which still have their | >parent, but the parent has not (yet) collected their exit status. | | From the 'ps' man page: | | "Processes marked <defunct> are dead processes (so-called "zombies") | that remain because their parent has not destroyed them properly. | These processes will be destroyed by init(8) if the parent process | exits." | | In my experience, zombie processes have a parent process ID of 1 | (init) by the time I discover them. It's not my experience, and indeed the man page you quote suggests it should not be your experience, since process 1 _is_ init. To be a zombie with process 1 as your parent is at best a very very transient thing, since init collects all its children almost instantly; indeed, aside from mediating runlevels this is init's major function. I would really be very interested in seeing a cut/paste of a real world ps listing showing what you describe. It is quite possible to have processes with parent id 1, but I would never expect them to be zombies. Cheers, -- Cameron Simpson <cs@xxxxxxxxxx> DoD#743 http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/ Processes are like potatoes. - NCR device driver manual -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
