killing processes

[Collins Richey]

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 7:41 AM, Machiel Richards
<MachielR at agilitytech.co.za> wrote:
> Hi all
>

>                 We have a cron that runs regularly....however one of the
> child processes produced by the cron keeps on running even after the cron
> has completed...
>
>                 This uses up a lot of resources and we have not been able to
> kill it, not even by using kill -9.
>
>                 Can anybody perhaps tell us how to kill these type of
> processes?

If the parent process dies before reaping all the children, then the
children become zombies (AFAIK not killable). Two methods that I can
see.

1. Fix the parent process to wait for the children to finish (the best solution)
2. Wrap the parent process in a script that finds and kills the
children (may not work).

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.