Re: Zombie process using pppd

[Mark Buda <hermit@clark.net>]

>>>>> "Alex" == Alex V Toropov <alex@ct.spb.ru> writes:

    Alex> In what situation process becomes Zombie ?

When a process exits, it can return an exit status code to its parent
process. The parent process retrieves this exit status code by
invoking the wait() system call. A zombie process is a process that
has exited, but whose parent hasn't used wait() to get its exit status
code yet. It isn't doing anything, it's just there in the list of
processes, waiting to be wait()ed for, unable to really die until that
happens.

Eventually, even if the neglectful parent process never wait()s for
it, it will go away, for this reason: When a parent process exits,
init (process id 1) inherits all its child processes. And one of
init's less well-known jobs is wait()ing for orphaned zombie
processes.
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