05-21-2010
dead process == zombie? What is your definition of a dead process?
The OS cycles the pid of new processes from 1 -> signed short max for most systems.
You should be checking the user/owner of the file and looking for the both the pid and the user. Not just a pid. pids are reused constantly. lsof will tell you if a process still has the file open, if that is the source of your problem.
What OS do you have? Does your system have mandatory locking -- i.e., Apps like weblogic lock directories, do you have something like that running?
This User Gave Thanks to jim mcnamara For This Post:
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KILL(1) Linux Programmer's Manual KILL(1)
NAME
kill - terminate a process
SYNOPSIS
kill [ -s signal | -p ] [ -a ] [ -- ] pid ...
kill -l [ signal ]
DESCRIPTION
The command kill sends the specified signal to the specified process or process group. If no signal is specified, the TERM signal is sent.
The TERM signal will kill processes which do not catch this signal. For other processes, it may be necessary to use the KILL (9) signal,
since this signal cannot be caught.
Most modern shells have a builtin kill function, with a usage rather similar to that of the command described here. The `-a' and `-p'
options, and the possibility to specify pids by command name is a local extension.
OPTIONS
pid... Specify the list of processes that kill should signal. Each pid can be one of five things:
n where n is larger than 0. The process with pid n will be signaled.
0 All processes in the current process group are signaled.
-1 All processes with pid larger than 1 will be signaled.
-n where n is larger than 1. All processes in process group n are signaled. When an argument of the form `-n' is given, and it
is meant to denote a process group, either the signal must be specified first, or the argument must be preceded by a `--'
option, otherwise it will be taken as the signal to send.
commandname
All processes invoked using that name will be signaled.
-s signal
Specify the signal to send. The signal may be given as a signal name or number.
-l Print a list of signal names. These are found in /usr/include/linux/signal.h
-a Do not restrict the commandname-to-pid conversion to processes with the same uid as the present process.
-p Specify that kill should only print the process id (pid) of the named processes, and not send any signals.
SEE ALSO
bash(1), tcsh(1), kill(2), sigvec(2), signal(7)
AUTHOR
Taken from BSD 4.4. The ability to translate process names to process ids was added by Salvatore Valente <svalente@mit.edu>.
Linux Utilities 14 October 1994 KILL(1)