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Re: killing a job



The Saturday 02 February 2013 01:36:32, Bob Proulx wrote :
> Thierry Chatelet wrote:
> > Bob Proulx wrote :
> > > If the process won't die then likely it is a zombie.
> > > 
> > >   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_process
> > > 
> > > Zombies cannot be killed because they are already dead.  The most
> > > common reason they haven't left yet is because their parent process
> > > hasn't executed wait(2) upon them to receive their exit status.  In
> > > which case the problem is a bad parent.
> > > 
> > > Find the parent process id and kill the parent.  In the case of zombie
> > > processes it is the bad parent that is really the problem.
> > 
> > True, zombie cant be be kill as they alredy dead by definition!
> > Well, top gives me 2 zombies. So I should be able to kill at least 1
> > vlc instance. But is there any way to get the name of
> > zombies?... Well, strange thing no???
> 
> Zombie processes have whatever name they always have had.  Being a
> zombie does not change their name.
> 
> But it is the name of the parent that is import.  Or rather it is the
> process id of the parent that is important.  Find the parent process
> and kill it.
> 
>   ps -efH | less
> UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
> rwp      29470 29468  0 Jan28 pts/30   00:00:00     bash
> rwp      29579 29470  0 Jan28 pts/30   00:01:00       foo
> rwp      29472 29579  0 Jan28 pts/30   00:01:00         [<defunct>]
> 
> Process 29472 is a zombie.  It is process 29579 that is the bad
> parent.  Kill 29579 (in this example) and the zombie will be reaped.
> Note I just made that example up from memory and it probably differs
> from what you are actually seeing and is for illustration only.
> 
> Here is longer explanation that might help:
> 
>   http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/faq/part3/section-13.html
> 
> Bob

I got two times the same defunct: kcmshell4,w guehich I guess are my 2 
zombies. Does not help much for my 3 intances of vlc. Any way, its  2 AM and I 
am going to bed. Thank you and tomorrow will be a new day...
Thierry


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