defunct processes

Bill McCormick wpmccormick at sbcglobal.net
Mon Aug 9 14:13:07 UTC 2004


Nitin wrote:

>Hi again,
>
>I'm facing this problem for long. Why do processes start to add in the list like following:
>
>  
>
>>>>>>>ps -ax |grep Z
>>>>>>>              
>>>>>>>
>
>15611 ?        Z      0:00 [awk <defunct>]
>15645 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
>15647 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 2034 ?        Z      0:00 [awk <defunct>]
> 2041 ?        Z      0:00 [mktemp <defunct>]
> 5542 ?        Z      0:00 [chown <defunct>]
> 7474 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 7477 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 7481 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 7484 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
>18934 ?        Z      0:00 [awk <defunct>]
>  727 ?        Z      0:00 [awk <defunct>]
> 6081 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6084 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6117 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6120 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6132 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6135 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6140 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6143 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6150 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6153 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6180 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6183 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6187 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6190 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6194 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6197 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6223 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6226 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6228 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6231 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6281 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6284 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6288 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6291 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6294 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6297 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6303 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6306 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6311 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6314 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6318 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
> 6321 ?        Z      0:00 [hostname <defunct>]
> 6324 ?        Z      0:00 [sh <defunct>]
>
>
>Why does it happen, plz help me as soon as possible. It's affecting system stability badly.
>
>Thanks in advance
>Nitin
>  
>
I THINK this happens when a parent process dies without waiting for the 
child process. I could be wrong. Do a man fork and check.





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