Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 06 Sep 2000 10:55:39 -0700
From:      Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group <Cy.Schubert@uumail.gov.bc.ca>
To:        Vivek Khera <khera@kciLink.com>
Cc:        stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: running lyris for linux makes many zombies 
Message-ID:  <200009061756.e86Huaa75647@cwsys.cwsent.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 06 Sep 2000 13:03:14 EDT." <14774.30930.120103.685216@onceler.kciLink.com> 

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
In message <14774.30930.120103.685216@onceler.kciLink.com>, Vivek Khera 
writes:
> On a FreeBSD 4.1-S cvsup'd yesterday, I'm running Lyris 4.0 for linux
> (with the security patches installed).  I had been running this on a
> RedHat 6.0 system quite well, but I'd rather rid myself of that system
> ;-)
> 
> Anyhow, I'm getting *lots* of zombie processes being left around after
> processing a few messages, and the number keeps growing.  This did not
> happen on the "real" linux system.
> 
> Is there some knob I can turn on in the linux compatibility system to
> get the zombies to be reaped properly?  I have COMPAT_LINUX defined in
> my kernel so the linux compat is statically linked into the kernel.

Lyris is failing to issue a wait(2) call to obtain the exit status of 
children that have terminated.  The kernel will keep a a process table 
entry for the terminated child until the exit status has been fetched 
by its parent.

My guess the reason Linux doesn't have any zombies is that the Linux 
init(8) is getting involved to fetch the status and clean up after the 
application.  This is not standard UNIX.  What FreeBSD is doing, e.g. 
nothing as it's an application issue, is the correct thing to do.

IIRC, there are some differences between SYSV and BSD in this regard, 
though I cannot remember the details and I don't have Stevens' book 
here to reference.


Regards,                       Phone:  (250)387-8437
Cy Schubert                      Fax:  (250)387-5766
Team Leader, Sun/DEC Team   Internet:  Cy.Schubert@osg.gov.bc.ca
Open Systems Group, ITSD, ISTA
Province of BC





To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200009061756.e86Huaa75647>