Re: [users] Unkillable process

["Paul D. Smith" <pausmith@nortelnetworks.com>]

%% MaD dUCK <madduck@madduck.net> writes:

  md> also sprach Andrei Ivanov (on Tue, 22 May 2001 10:31:26PM -0500):
  >> scorpio   7314  0.0  3.8 28888 4876 tty1     D    May10   0:00
  >> /usr/local/mozilla/mozilla-bin

  md> this is a straight-forward failure of the linux kernel. it's a dead
  md> process, it doesn't listen to anything anymore.

It's possible, under severe error conditions, to get processes which
won't respond to kill -9 on any kernel.  The KILL signal may not be
blocked by the process in user space, but that doesn't mean that it
can't be blocked by the kernel in kernel space, and it often is.

Simply whacking a process within the kernel at the instant you kill -9
would leave all sorts of resources unreleased, etc. etc.

Remember that when you kill a user process the kernel cleans up all its
memory, open file descriptors, etc. after it.  If you kill a process
within the kernel, who cleans up after that?  Thus, the kernel doesn't
allow processes to just disappear no matter what state they may be in
within the kernel itself.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <psmith@baynetworks.com>    HASMAT--HA Software Methods & Tools
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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   These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.