Re: help!! tons of Z processes in 2.4.x (x > 3)

[Anton Altaparmakov]

At 20:23 04/09/2001, Alan Cox wrote:
> > Since 2.4.6-ac[45] until 2.4.9-ac7 I keep on getting processes in Z
> > state, mainly identd (spawned from an identd daemon), galeon (the gnome
> > browser) and mysqld.
>
>Sounds like user mode problems to me. Z is a zombie - its waiting for its
>parent to wake up and collect its exit code. Look at their ppid see what
>the parent is and is doing
>
> > An strace to the process ends immediately with the following message:
> > # strace -p 3697
> > attach: ptrace(PTRACE_ATTACH, ...): Operation not permitted
> > It doesn't matter wheater I'm root or not.
>
>Yep - it doesnt really exist except as a process slot
>
> > If I run the redhat-7.1 kernel (kernel-2.4.3-12) this doesn=A1't happen, =
> > so
> > I deduce it has something to do with recent changes.
> >
> > I'm surprised that I'm the only one with this problem.
>
>So far you are

I am seeing zombies as well. This coincided with me installing SuSE 7.2 on 
my Athlon so I thought it to be user space...

I have only really noticed this with cron processes. A random example, ps 
ax says:

9862 ? Z 0:00 [cron <defunct>]

Looking at ppid we find the parent process /usr/sbin/cron which is in S state.

Seems to be harmless though, as the zombies just disappear after a little 
while so I never bothered reporting to anyone.

Just my 2p.

Anton