UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

When I run the top command, it shows 1 process as being Stopped. This is not a zombie, but simply a stopped process. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to tell which process this is, nor why it is in a stopped state? Any way of finding this out?

Please post the output so readers can see what your are referring to.

last pid: 7363; load averages: 6.82, 7.61, 9.56 19:54:04
128 processes: 119 sleeping, 6 running, 1 zombie, 1 stopped, 1 on cpu
CPU states: 38.2% idle, 34.8% user, 20.2% kernel, 6.9% iowait, 0.0% swap
Memory: 1536M real, 259M swap in use, 2430M swap free

PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME CPU COMMAND
19383 root 12 59 0 41M 39M sleep 9:04 4.16% bmserver
19421 root 11 58 0 40M 38M sleep 9:26 3.97% bmserver
19508 qmails 1 58 0 1840K 1448K run 1:40 0.61% qmail-send
19510 mailbox 1 50 0 1880K 1264K run 0:56 0.58% tcpserver
7337 mailbox 4 21 0 3048K 2424K sleep 0:00 0.56% qmail-smtpd
6883 hpzdaleo 1 58 0 2632K 1704K cpu0 0:00 0.38% top-sun4u-5.8
203 root 5 51 0 6944K 6184K sleep 13:22 0.37% automountd
28913 root 1 58 0 1216K 1040K run 22.2H 0.35% cplogd
7358 qmailr 1 39 0 2056K 1472K sleep 0:00 0.23% qmail-remote
176 root 1 58 0 13M 12M sleep 561:19 0.21% named
7355 mailbox 4 52 0 3048K 2408K sleep 0:00 0.21% qmail-smtpd
7080 mailbox 4 31 0 3048K 2408K sleep 0:00 0.20% qmail-smtpd
20462 root 1 58 0 9984K 5104K sleep 298:27 0.18% scopeux
7243 qmailr 1 58 0 2056K 1472K sleep 0:00 0.18% qmail-remote
7146 mailbox 4 33 0 3048K 2408K sleep 0:00 0.17% qmail-smtpd

on this machine:
SunOS 5.8 Generic_108528-08 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2

Your output does not show the "stopped process".... BTW.

I noticed that only the second line shows that one is stopped. The process does not even list. Hence my question. How do I find out what the process is?

You can use the ps command and search for the stopped process. Check the ps man page for your system to get the correct status flag for a stopped process. For example on our linux system (ps):

A process becomes a stopped process because it received a signal that it wasn't catching or ignoring whose default action is to stop the process. This includes signals such as SIGSTOP, SIGTSTP, SIGTTIN, and SIGTTOU.

This is mostly for job control. If your shell has job control features and is configured normally, you can type Control-Z to stop your foreground process.

There is nothing wrong with having a stopped process. You don't want to track it down and send it a SIGCONT unless you stopped it and now want it to continue.