From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 22 06:47:42 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [8.8.178.115]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1ACBAC48 for ; Wed, 22 May 2013 06:47:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from demelier.david@gmail.com) Received: from mail-we0-x230.google.com (mail-we0-x230.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:400c:c03::230]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC55FD2D for ; Wed, 22 May 2013 06:47:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-we0-f176.google.com with SMTP id p58so821706wes.21 for ; Tue, 21 May 2013 23:47:40 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=yX5qxAXYLR9jyzdNWI21gqgDISctO1wyNBo2ktYAlIQ=; b=ro2S9pL9V1PYnO7legVYXoNKhEQQKaTBICpsliBpL3LlWDKGnobQFRl3OAeiwtfY+X odw4VQrocPLTny19QnC397Id70r5EfRYuf4c/U8v+55Dq74VUTtIbt0HuVP+UXYCVyTW Ghv8XLqBdkCsUK/ePEW46ZnlX5q+Dm/hh6x8osKEPFSW0VZVw7z6wSEj4pKxmDlFoz7/ GZvxgDhtArLj8MSEqiHsL/u0VvBRAYhzoH2ATa7BeasKmDFX5jM/3gyL1zj4IqeXgt+V YsEsm7Y7XckLy5E5RmQzuFxq+vIVsCwkXFSx4daPYzc1cCHBcY+8kFDC+fsROb+Mhzsq rBkA== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.180.72.227 with SMTP id g3mr30247928wiv.1.1369205260931; Tue, 21 May 2013 23:47:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.194.32.101 with HTTP; Tue, 21 May 2013 23:47:40 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <519935D0.5080202@gmail.com> References: <519935D0.5080202@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 08:47:40 +0200 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Unkillable processes From: David Demelier To: Joshua Isom Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 06:47:42 -0000 2013/5/19 Joshua Isom : > On 5/19/2013 3:00 PM, David Demelier wrote: >> >> Hello there, >> >> I've had a process on state "pfault" and it was just unkillable, kill >> -9 had no effects and because the script was doing an infinite loop >> the machine was slower and slower so the only way to fix that was a >> reboot. >> >> Why kill -9 has still no effects on some bad processes? >> >> Regards, >> >> -- >> Demelier David > > > A process can be unkillable if it's holding a lock, like reading from disk. > Eventually, the lock will release and it should die. You can use limits to > change how much CPU and memory a process can use. My guess is what happened > is it started using a lot of memory, but you ran out and have a lot of swap. > It was trying to run while using your hard drive instead of ram. With > limits, you should be able to prevent it from using swap which could help, > and cap the amount of ram and cpu. Hello, thank you for that precise explanation, I will add limits into the new rctl.conf, however I don't know how many amount of ram I should allow, in fact I have absolutely no idea how much of ram an usual program eats, is 50Mo enough for user applications ? Regards, -- Demelier David