Re: How to find and clear zombie processes w/o rebooting?
On 25Jun2008 19:08, Daniel B. Thurman <dant(a)cdkkt.com> wrote:
Looks like the parent is related to gdm-binary?
Strange about my comment previously - hit 'reset' :D
Wonder what is going on with Xsession and why it died.
This is what I found:
===================
root 3704 0.0 0.1 18416 2096 ? Ss Jun24 0:00 /usr/sbin/gdm-binary
-nodaemon
root 3797 0.0 0.0 17896 2064 ? S Jun24 0:00 \_ /usr/sbin/gdm-binary
-nodaemon
root 3801 2.4 2.2 63512 47528 tty7 Ss+ Jun24 40:15 \_ /usr/bin/X :0
-br -audit 0 -auth /var/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7
dant 3854 0.0 0.1 33768 4104 ? Ssl Jun24 0:01 \_
/usr/bin/gnome-session
dant 3902 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Jun24 0:00 \_ [Xsession]
<defunct>
dant 3956 0.0 0.0 6328 252 ? Ss Jun24 0:00 \_
/usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients
[...]
Ok, this mean gnome-session forked a run of Xsession and didn't wait for
it. Xsession has exited, but whatever gnome-session really waits for
(typically the window manager) has not yet exited.
This is really common in xsession/xinitrc type shell scripts. You see
people write their sessions like this:
xterm &
xclock &
window-manager
So, that is a shell script. It kicks off a terminal, a clock and a
window manager. It waits for that last. When the window manager exits
(usually from the quit/logout menu item), the session ends, and gdm/xdm
kills the X server and starts a new server for a new login prompt.
Now.. if the terminal or clock exit, they will be zombies. The script is
may be waiting only for the window manager, expecially if the last line
goes:
exec window-manager
because the window manager will _replace_ the script, and thus be the
parent of the terminal and clock, but it will not be waiting for them.
It is normally desirable to run "tools" (the terminal, the clock,
nautilus etc) as children of a throw away subshell, thus:
( xterm &
xclock &
)
exec window manager
That way the tools are forked off from a subshell, the subshell exits,
and the children get inherited by init (_not_ the top shell!) whose
purpose in life is to catch such children and reap them, to prevent them
becoming zombies.
So:
- it is really a problem in gnome-session
- it isn't important, and is not related to your resource problems
Cheers,
--
Cameron Simpson <cs(a)zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
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