killing processes

[David A. Bandel]

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:41 AM, Machiel Richards
<MachielR at agilitytech.co.za> wrote:
> Hi all
>
>
>
>                 I hope someone can assist......
>
>
>
>                 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...

I would say it's a zombie, however ...

>
>
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>                 This uses up a lot of resources and we have not been able to
> kill it, not even by using kill -9.

zombies don't eat resources.  So this process is still doing something
and is unable to complete the process.

What is this process?  Sounds like it's either trapping signals or not
processing interrupts (which would definitely have it eating
resources).

>
>
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>                 This is on a production system and we cannot afford to
> reboot the server.

Need more info.  What are the salient cron processes?  What does this
cron do?  Could a different process cause contention?  If this is a
rotation script, are you signalling the process writing to the
original file to close your file descriptors?


>
>
>
>
>
>                 Can anybody perhaps tell us how to kill these type of
> processes?

There are several things that could be causing this -- need more info
on what you're doing.

How about posting the process line showing the process that's "stuck".
 After that perhaps the cron itself (if it's not too long).

Any chance the cron could run a second time while the first is running?

>
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> Regards
>
>
>
>
>
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Can you please remove these legally worthless disclaimers?  The
disclaimer is longer than your entire post.


Thanx,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto