Options to stop processes that can't be killed -9 other than reboot

[Cameron Simpson]

On 14Sep2011 10:13, m.roth at 5-cent.us <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote:
| > If you have a process that is stuck in a zombie mode and kill -9 isn't
| > getting rid of it, you may need to do something with the parent process
| > that spawned it in the first place.
| 
| Yeah, but too often, the parent process has gone, and the zombie's now got
| a parent of 1.

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.

There's no point trying to kill a zombie - it has already exited and is
using no resources other than a process table slot to preserve the PID
against reuse until the parent has waited, and to hold the exit status
the parent will collect.

In the cited case, the process hasn't exited, so it is not a zombie anyway.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

I was moving so fast I started using Him as a braking marker.
        - motorcyclist test pilot