From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jan 22 20: 5:50 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from post.mail.nl.demon.net (post-10.mail.nl.demon.net [194.159.73.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6466837B404 for ; Tue, 22 Jan 2002 20:05:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from [212.238.194.207] (helo=tanya.raggedclown.net) by post.mail.nl.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 16TEfP-0002s6-00 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Wed, 23 Jan 2002 04:05:43 +0000 Received: by tanya.raggedclown.net (tanya.raggedclown.intra, from userid 500) id BD7C8118A; Wed, 23 Jan 2002 05:05:42 +0100 (CET) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 05:05:42 +0100 From: Cliff Sarginson To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: URGENT: kill -9 doesn't work Message-ID: <20020123040542.GG1345@raggedclown.net> References: <20020122175821.U12282-100000@angui.sh> <20020123034649.GA92597@moo.holy.cow> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020123034649.GA92597@moo.holy.cow> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.24i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, Jan 22, 2002 at 10:46:49PM -0500, parv wrote: > in message <20020122175821.U12282-100000@angui.sh>, > wrote Will Froning thusly... > > > > Does anyone know how to kill a process that doesn't respond to kill > > -9? > > > > It keeps dumping core to a nfs server and quickly filling it up. I > > cannot reboot the machine. Any hints? > > i don't know if it was you who had posted similar problem on > comp.unix.(admin|questions). in any case, SIGSEGV was suggested > along w/ possible reason of SIGKILL not working. > There are a few cases where this happens. I see Greg's explanation in another posting. It can also happen if a process gets into an uninterruptible sleep state, waiting for something that will never happen. This is a rather famous Unix feature.. :) The thing about signal 9 is that no process can handle or ignore it (except process 1, init, but that is a special case). Unfortunately it still has to be delivered to take effect. In your case there may be another explanation. You don't say what the process is but perhaps it is one that when it dies, it's death is detected by it's parent and automatically restarted. If it is core-dumping then you have a vicious circle. Is the PID changing ? If so then it is not that the process is unkillable, it is that something is restarting it. -- Regards Cliff To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message