Peter Garrett wrote: > On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:03:52 +1000 > Sebastian Spiess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> hi all, >> >> for quite a while now I've been having one or sometimes 2 zombie processes >> showing in my system monitor >> >> I tried to kill them using the system monitor. I tried killall and PID but >> everything I tried did not work. > > You can't kill a zombie process - that's why they are called > "zombies" :) > >> After reboot the zombie is back. >> >> PID is always >6000 if that matters. > > It is probably a misbehaving program that doesn't clean up after itself > correctly. Zombie processes are inherited by "init" (PID 1), but it > would be more useful for you to see which program is doing this. > > For example, you could run > > ps auxw | grep <PID number here> or grep for "Z" (capital Z is what > shows up in the process table). If this is reappearing on reboot you > have a buggy program... the parent process (whatever it is) is leaving > its children behind. Bad parent :) > >> How can I investigate what causes this zombie and how can I kill it. > > See above. You *cannot kill a zombie*, by definition. That said, a > zombie does no harm, since it uses no resources except what is required > to exist in the process list. You would need a huge army ( a horde?) of > zombies before there would be any impact on system performance. > > "Why You Can't Kill a Zombie Process" > http://www.unix.com.ua/orelly/unix/upt/ch38_16.htm > >> I would prefer the shot gun which worked well on zombies in some games but >> here in my system probably not :-) > > Garlic and silver bullets, waving crosses etc. don't work on zombies? > *grin* >
Thanks Peter, I did as you suggested ~$ ps aux | grep 6141 seb 6141 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Jul25 0:00 [sh] <defunct> seb 18058 0.0 0.0 3008 744 pts/1 R+ 10:54 0:00 grep 6141 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ps aux | grep 14560 seb 14560 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 10:20 0:00 [sh] <defunct> seb 18077 0.0 0.0 3008 752 pts/1 R+ 10:54 0:00 grep 14560 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ps aux | grep Z USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND seb 6141 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Jul25 0:00 [sh] <defunct> seb 14560 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 10:20 0:00 [sh] <defunct> seb 18088 0.0 0.0 3012 772 pts/1 R+ 10:54 0:00 grep Z but what does that give me. A shell is the zombie... reading your link tells me that the problem could be a device driver. From what I remember I did not attach any new devices to my notebook, everything I use now I used when I installed hardy. I did though do some changes to installed software, my feeling is ever since I set up tracker to crawl my files the zombie was there, but I can't tell for sure. Another thing is that since I have the zombie (or two) I clicking on the clock/date left of the log out/shut down the panel seems to crash or slow every thing down. the menu with calendar and the locations won't even open. Any ideas here would be great because I am lost with this one :-/ thanks, sebastian -- ubuntu-au mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
