[Solved] How to remove / kill defunct processess?

jinslick25 · #1 04-01-2010

Hi,

Is there a way or a command to remove defunct processes on my hp-ux server?

Its shows a lot of them and i think its affecting the performance of the server.

Code:

who -d |wc -l
580

mikep9 · #2 04-01-2010

on sco unix

kill -10 pid#

jinslick25 · #3 04-01-2010

but how can i get their PID?

TonyFullerMalv · #4 04-01-2010

How about:

Code:

ps -ef | grep defunct

methyl · #5 04-07-2010

Quote:

who -d

This "who" command does not show current defunct processes.
It shows current users logged in and some debris left in /etc/utmp - usually left after killing orphan processes.
A reboot clears the list.

Code:

who -ud

jgt · #6 04-07-2010

This issue seems to be caused by users closing Windows terminal emulation sessions without first signing off, (clicking on the X before exiting the session.)
On SCO systems, these "ghost" sessions tend to consume all the available CPU trying to re-connect.
I wrote the following script to deal with this issue, but it should be used with caution.
On SCO systems telnet sessions are named ttypnn, on HP-UX it appears they are named pts/nnn.

Code:

#!/bin/ksh
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
echo Usage is delete.ghosts  Y or N
exit 1
fi
ps -leaf |grep ttyp >/tmp/ps.list
who >/tmp/user.list
LIST=; export LIST
separator=" "
while read a tty c 
do
LIST=$LIST$separator$tty
separator=" |"
done </tmp/user.list
grep -v "?" </tmp/ps.list |grep -v root |\
grep -E -v "$LIST" >/tmp/ghost.list
while read a b user pid e f
do
if [ $1 = Y ]
then
echo for real $user $pid
echo kill -9 $pid
#kill -9 $pid
else
echo test run $user $pid
echo kill -9 $pid
fi
done </tmp/ghost.list
#

methyl · #7 04-07-2010

@jgt

The script you post is terrifying, but I follow the basic reasoning. I would recommend that nobody runs that script on an operational system - especially one which has data.

Sorry, but it is scripts such as this which issue "kill -9" arbitarily actually cause the situation which we see with "who -d" in the original post.

If you were forced to issue a kill against orphan interractive process it should be "kill -15" or whatever "kill" signal is required by the application.

Never issue "kill -9" unless you are having trouble shutting a system down or encounter a process which is definitely stuck on impossible I/O.

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