Re: [LI] runaway process

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Nov 08, 1999 at 09:24:16AM -0000, Sunil Sarat wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Is a runaway process the same as Zombie process? If so, in linux is there
> any way out to find such processes and kill them manually/automatically?

Zombie process = a process, whose parent doesn't wait(2) for it. It exists
solely because someone needs to read its exit status.

A runaway process is a more loosely defined term. I've seen people using
the term to any process with a "weird" behavior - spawning child procs
too fast, or sucking up all the CPU without doing anything. The import
thing is that a runway process hasn't exit(2)'ed.

How do you find it ? Use top/ktop/ps or your favorite tool to look for
processes taking up too many resources (cpu/mem/process table slot) and
kill -9 them.

	-Arun

--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Linux India Mailing List Archives are now available.  Please search
the archive at http://lists.linux-india.org/ before posting your question
to avoid repetition and save bandwidth.