> > > Ever see a process that survives kill -9?
> I've seen programs survive it. As far as I can tell, they
> are waiting for an IO operation to complete, and it
> has been lost (or perhaps an NFS hardmount?)
Yes. This is possible. They are in uninterruptible sleep, then.
This basically means a kernel call is hanging, which is uninterruptible
(i.e. the kernel is of the optionion this request _has_ to complete before
anything else happens).
There is nothing one can do about that. Basically it is a problem in the
kernel, if the program stays in uninterruptible sleep for excessive amounts
of time (say >10 minutes). The kernel has to give the IO operation enough
time to complete, but there has to be some timeout.
This state is also one of the major reasons, why I think cooperative console
switching is a bad idea. A graphical backup application would not be able to
ack a console switch while rewinding a tape ... GRR.
CU, Andy
--
= Andreas Beck | Email : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> =
