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Old 12-24-2006, 07:48 AM   #1
Kropotkin
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shell script terminates as zombie, ie, <defunct>


Hi all,

A shell script of mine which runs on a regular basis appears not to exit properly; if I run ps -e, I see more than a dozen instances of it marked as <defunct>. I don't suppose it matters as they don't appear to be using CPU or memory, but still I suspect it must be something fairly simple to fix.

Adding "exit" at the bottom of the script has no effect. What else could it be?

Thanks.

Last edited by Kropotkin; 12-25-2006 at 09:48 AM.
 
Old 12-24-2006, 08:01 AM   #2
macemoneta
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Defunct processes (also called zombies) are the result of a process dying, but not being "reaped" by the parent process. To reap defunct processes, the parent process must call wait. See 'man bash' or the man page for whatever shell you are using.
 
Old 02-19-2007, 04:51 AM   #3
Reegz
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Hi Guys,

I am experiencing the same problem. Does anyone have an idea as to what causes a script to go into a 'defunct' state? My script is running off cron and the only way I am able to terminate it is by stopping the cron daemon.
 
Old 02-20-2007, 12:15 AM   #4
henrysukumar
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If your shell script has capability of forking the process, then this problem will occur..Normally the child process can only be killed/terminated by the parent process. But if the parent process got killed due to some reason, then the child process cannot be killed unless recieving a kill signal from parent, so this will never happen and the child becomes zombie.
 
  


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