Re: is killing zombies possible w/o a reboot?

[Jim Nelson <james4765@verizon.net>]

DervishD wrote:
>     Hi Gene :)
> 
>  * Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@verizon.net> dixit:
> 
>>>   Then the children are reparented to 'init' and 'init' gets rid
>>>of them. That's the way UNIX behaves.
>>
>>Unforch, I've *never* had it work that way.  Any dead process I've 
>>ever had while running linux has only been disposable by a reboot.
> 
> 
>     Well, you know, shit happens... Anyway, could you define 'dead'?
> Because if you're talking about zombies whose parent dies, they're
> killable easily: just wait until init reaps them (usually in less
> than 5 minutes since they dead). If you are talking about zombies who
> has their parent alive, then it's a bug in the application, not the
> kernel. In fact I wouldn't like if the kernel reaps my children
> before I do, just in case I want to do something.
> 
>     If you're talking about unkillable processes (those stuck in
> disk-sleep state), you're right: only rebooting can kill them
> (although sometimes they go out of D state and die normally). Bad
> luck for you if any dead process you've ever had while running linux
> has been of this kind :(
> 

I did this to myself a number of times when I was first learning Samba - even an 
ls would become unkillable.  You couldn't rmmod smb, since it was in use, and you 
couldn't kill the process, since it was waiting on a syscall.  Ergh.

>     Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado
>