On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 09:57:16AM +0100, Otto Moerbeek wrote: > zombie state happend if a child process exits, but its parent did not > execute a wait(2) system call (or one if its alternatives) for the > process (yet). So this seem a bug in the handling of CGIs.
I'd like to add a bit to the above and to Paul de Weerd's comments: Zombie processes are there to maintain a little info in case the parent process calls wait() later to retrieve it. Some program designs catch SIGCHILD or have a thread block on wait*, and in those cases the zombie lasts such a short time you'll probably never see it in top or ps. Other designs use non-blocking forms and zombies may stick around long enough to notice, but then disappear later when the parent makes a pass. If the parent dies before calling wait, then the zombie is inherited by init which will take care of it. So, zombies happen, but the only time they stay around for a long time is a negligent/misdesigned parent that is still alive but not calling wait* on the children. The OS can't make a badly written program into a well written program. So as admin you are stuck restarting the parent periodically, switching to something else, or bugging the developers to fix the problem. -- Darrin Chandler | Phoenix BSD User Group | MetaBUG [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://phxbug.org/ | http://metabug.org/ http://www.stilyagin.com/ | Daemons in the Desert | Global BUG Federation
