Problem with killing processes

[James Wilkinson]

LC wrote:
> Try kill -9 pid

Sebastian Kösters wrote:
> Dow not work too :(

On Unix-like systems, kill -9 will only "fail" if the process is in the
middle of a system call to the kernel.

Well, to be precise, the signal is held until the system call returns,
and then the process is killed. But if the system call does not return
(or hasn't yet returned), then the process will just sit there.

The process name is amanda, so I imagine that what has happened is that
it has made a kernel system call to control a tape drive, and the tape
drive is in trouble (e.g. tape stuck).

Unless you have tape drives that are hot-swappable on the SCSI bus, you
may need to reset the computer to reset the hardware.

It's also possible that the tape drive itself needs maintenance.

But it's difficult to tell from here. Does /var/log/messages give you
any clue?

By the way, the custom on this list (as elsewhere) is to trim quoted
text and reply beneath it, like this.

Hope this helps,

James.
-- 
E-mail address: james | The attitude ``The computer said so, so it must be
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | right'' is always amusing to the people who program
                      | them.
                      |     -- Geoff Lane