Timeline for Is there any impact of reaping zombie processes?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 13, 2012 at 5:02 | comment | added | Tim Kennedy | if you have zombie processes who's parent pid is '1' (init), those you can reap. If a zombie process still reports it's actual parent as it's PPID, wait it out. | |
| Nov 7, 2012 at 14:34 | comment | added | Jim Paris | that was 1 example, I'm sure there are many more. The point is that you don't need to fix the root cause because there's no problem. | |
| Nov 7, 2012 at 9:27 | comment | added | jlliagre | @Jim Paris: Indeed, there are cases where one minute won't be long enough and that's why I wrote "very little chance" and not "no chance at all". I'm assuming mibzer has no way to fix the root cause which rules out monit. | |
| Nov 6, 2012 at 15:57 | comment | added | Jim Paris | Here is a counterexample that took no time to find: monit starts a program at regular intervals but doesn't reap them until the following interval starts, perhaps five minutes later. | |
| Nov 6, 2012 at 9:32 | history | edited | jlliagre | CC BY-SA 3.0 | added 394 characters in body |
| Nov 6, 2012 at 7:04 | history | edited | jlliagre | CC BY-SA 3.0 | added 15 characters in body |
| Nov 6, 2012 at 7:04 | comment | added | jlliagre | @Jim Paris: I agree the root cause should be fixed if possible but I assume the question means it is not possible for some reason. In any case, if the parent has not reaped a defunct child after say one minute, there is very little chance it will ever do it. | |
| Nov 5, 2012 at 17:58 | comment | added | Jim Paris | You would never know how long to wait. Better to let the parent do its job and fix it if it's not. | |
| Nov 5, 2012 at 12:23 | comment | added | jlliagre | That's a timing issue. If you happen to run your script just after a process dies, you need to let its parent process a chance to reap it and properly get its return status. | |
| Nov 5, 2012 at 12:20 | comment | added | Marco | What is “too early”? What are the downsides of reaping them too soon? How to determine “long enough”? | |
| Nov 5, 2012 at 10:44 | history | answered | jlliagre | CC BY-SA 3.0 |