>
> What is a zombie process and how do I get rid of it?
>
A zombie process is a process that has terminated, but for some reason its
parent process has not collected the return code from it. The parent
is supposed to go into a wait state (man -s 2 wait) to clear this return
code from the buffer, but if for some reason the parent never does (bad
programming, hung parent process, parent stuck in short-wait due to
faulty I/O, whatever), the child that exited will be stuck there, waiting
forever for the parent to clear that buffer.
They're called "zombies" because you can't kill 'em, they're already dead.
Usually the only way to clear these things from the proc table is to
reboot.
--Mark
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