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Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 15:25:04 -0500
From: Ron Steele <ron@dc.infi.net>
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Subject: Re: * searching a good priest for zombies processes *
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Dave Andersen wrote:
> 
 
>    This is almost certainly a bug in the program you're running.
> You can, however, clear up the zombies by killing off the parent process.
> This will cause init to take over the child processes, and it
> will reap them (ask "Hey, give me that info").
> 
>    I haven't heard of the software you're using - sorry - but I'd
> suggest contacting the author(s) about it.  It's possible that they're
> missing some race condition in 2.2 that they used to hit, or something.
> 
>     -Dave Andersen

What I have never understood is why/how processes owned by init (ppid=1)
can be zombies.  I have seen this is on HP-UX, old SunOS, and earlier
versions of FreeBSD.  Shouldn't init clean up the zombies?

Ron Steele