Re: Killing a zombie process?

[Paul Goyette <paul%vps1.whooppee.com@localhost>]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2015, Gary Duzan wrote:

> In Message <Pine.NEB.4.64.1509241821230.1850%vps1.whooppee.com@localhost>,
>   Paul Goyette <paul%vps1.whooppee.com@localhost>wrote:
>
> =>I'm not sure how I got to this point (but see high-level steps below).
> =>I have this zombie process:
> =>
> =>root    27237  0.0  0.0       0      0 pts/2- Z          - 0:00.00 (sh)
> =>
> =>Various web resources say "kill the parent" and the zombie child will
> =>die, too.  But that's probably not a good idea here, since the parent is
> =>(or at least, appears to be) init (pid==1).
>
>   Can you conform with "ps axl"?

 UID   PID  PPID   CPU PRI NI     VSZ    RSS WCHAN   STAT TTY       TIME COMMAND
   0     0     0     0   0  0       0  15044 -       OKl  ?      1:49.02 [syste
   0     1     0     0  85  0   13092   1336 wait    Is   ?      0:00.59 init
...
   0 27237     1     0   0  0       0      0 -       Z    pts/2- 0:00.00 (sh)


Yup, my zombie's parent PPID==1



>   If init is really its parent, check its "ps axl" output and
> check its WCHAN. If it isn't "wait", maybe run "ktruss -p 1" to
> get an idea of what it is doing instead of wait*() calls.

See ps output above;  init's WCHAN==wait

So no clue on why it's not getting around to reaping child 27237.


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