Tough nuts for "kill -9" (was Re: [vox-tech] ac97 sound problems)

[Jeff Newmiller]

On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:

> mike,
> 
> as always, this was a very informative post!  i think i may have
> something to add.
> 
> begin msimons@moria.simons-clan.com <msimons@moria.simons-clan.com> 
> > 
> >   If you send a "kill -9" and the process does not die instantly, then 
> > you have a kernel bug... there is no way to "block" or "hide" from kill -9.
> 
> >   So you have a kernel bug.
> 
> as you point out, processes in "uninterruptable sleep" can't be killed
> with SIGKILL.  the process is put to sleep while the kernel waits for
> some event to happen.  this corresponds to process status "D".
> 
> as you point out, it can be kernel bug.  often a race condition.
> but it can also be caused by hardware failure.

The process may also be a zombie... this has been discussed on this list
and is a Unix FAQ ...

http://www.erlenstar.demon.co.uk/unix/faq_2.html#SEC13

In such cases, you need to find and clean up the parent of the zombie and
then wait a moment for the process table to get cleaned up.

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