Re: Shutdown problem -- cron job related?

[David Baron <d_baron@012.net.il>]

>> At certain times, seems Friday noontime, I am unable to shutdown the
>> system. Instead of the usual scripts to killing all processes, unmounting
>> everything and will now halt, goodby, I get:
>> 
>>  process running pstree (or something like that)
>>  shutdown aborted
>> 
>>  At this point, the system (or at least any console or UI) is dead.
>> 
>>  What it this?


> Just see which process is running pstree.
> "ps -eaf | grep pstree"
> You could find the parent pid of pstree (second column).
> Look at the parent of pstree, and the process started this one.
> If you go back that way, finally you will reach init, but before that you
> could find which system process started these processes.
I'll have to try it when I know the thing is running.

> As I recall, pstree is not part of basic installation.
> It was put to do some scripting, regarding found, in
> perl/python?
> My first bet would be to remove offensive cron line and
> shutdown normally. Than to do filesystem checks. Next,
> to set cron to use pstree as a regular user. I think that
> shutdown was done in some parts, aka closed network. What
> has to wait, hangs the system.
> Otherwise, there is a chance that some housekeeping pro-
> cesses are started at noon every day. You could always
> look at /etc directory and find them. Some unices have
> it in /etc/periodic/daily. It starts with #!/bin/sh.
> Another clue may be in /var/log, as a result of newsyslog.conf.

I have no /etc/periodic and no logs for pstree

I manually ran it (x11 variant) and this is what I got:
init-+-Xprt
     |-akonadi_control-+-akonadi_ical_re
     |                 |-8*[akonadi_kabc_re]
     |                 |-4*[akonadi_kcal_re]
     |                 |-42*[akonadi_maildir]
     |                 |-akonadi_maildis
     |                 |-akonadi_nepomuk---{akonadi_nepomu}
     |                 |-akonadi_vcard_r
     |                 |-akonadiserver-+-mysqld---74*[{mysqld}]
     |                 |               `-66*[{akonadiserver}]
     |                 `-4*[{akonadi_contro}]
     |-apmd
     |-atd
     |-avahi-daemon---avahi-daemon
     |-boinc
     |-clamd---2*[{clamd}]
     |-console-kit-dae---63*[{console-kit-da}]
     |-cron
     |-cupsd
     |-das_watchdog---{das_watchdog}
     |-3*[dbus-daemon]
     |-2*[dbus-launch]
     |-ddclient
     |-dirmngr
     |-dovecot-+-2*[dovecot-auth]
     |         |-imap
     |         |-3*[imap-login]
     |         `-3*[pop3-login]
     |-exim4
     |-fail2ban-server---6*[{fail2ban-serve}]
     |-fetchmail
     |-2*[getty]
     |-gpm
     |-hald-+-hald-runner-+-hald-addon-inpu
     |      |             `-hald-addon-stor
     |      `-{hald}
     |-in.tftpd
     |-inetd
     |-jackdbus
     |-kaccess
     |-kded4---{kded4}
     |-kdeinit4-+-kio_file
     |          |-kio_http_cache_
     |          |-kio_imap4
     |          |-klauncher
     |          |-ksmserver-+-kwin
     |          |           `-{ksmserver}
     |          |-python---python---python
     |          `-qjackctl---{qjackctl}
     |-kdm-+-Xorg
     |     `-kdm---startkde-+-kwrapper4
     |                      `-2*[ssh-agent]
     |-kget
     |-kglobalaccel
     |-klipper
     |-klogd
     |-kmail---{kmail}
     |-kmix
     |-knemo
     |-knotify4
     |-korgac---{korgac}
     |-krunner---{krunner}
     |-kxkb---{kxkb}
     |-nepomukserver
     |-plasma-desktop-+-ksysguardd
     |                `-7*[{plasma-desktop}]
     |-portmap
     |-postmaster-+-postmaster
     |            `-postmaster---postmaster
     |-preload
     |-proftpd
     |-rpc.mountd
     |-rpc.statd
     |-smartd
     |-spamd---2*[spamd]
     |-sshd
     |-svscanboot-+-readproctitle
     |            `-svscan
     |-syslogd
     |-tinyproxy---11*[tinyproxy]
     |-udevd---2*[udevd]
     |-xfs
     |-xfstt
     `-yakuake-+-bash---pstree.x11
               `-{yakuake}
Press return to close

Which would basically reflect what init ran and what kde4 is doing when I did 
it. Why would this be stuck at the end?