From: jvs@netcom.com (Jonathan Stockley) Subject: Re: Zombie processes, and what to do about them... Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1993 07:07:21 GMT
In article <1993Feb14.021655.13721@acd4.acd.com> jbii@HDFS1.acd.com ( John O. Bell II ) writes:
>In article <1krc56$47u@sixgun.East.Sun.COM> tgendron@caneel.East.Sun.COM writes:
>>In article 4v98Gibj55@s-link.escape.de, benj@s-link.escape.de (Benjamin Harling) writes:
>>
>>>How do I get rid of a zombie (Z) process? Kill -9 PID doesn't work.
>>>
>>A zompie occurs when the child is left on the doorstep by it's parrent.
>
>Hope this helps clear things up a bit on zombie/defunct processes...
>
As far as I can tell the only resource that a zombie has is the process table
entry containing it. All other resources are released by the kernel. This only
becomes a problem if you have a large number them hanging around. Then you risk
running out of process table entries and can't fork().
Just my $0.02 :-)
Jo.