[GoLUG] *** Was: Linux Campfire Tales and now is a small Zombie Apocalypse of the process table

[Steve Litt]

Kyle Terrien said on Fri, 5 Apr 2024 13:42:32 -0700


[snip]

>When a process is orphaned, it is re-parented to PID 1, which runs a 
>special init process.  You can also have orphaned zombies: if a
>process exits, and its parent exits without ever calling wait() on the
>process, then the process gets re-parented to PID 1.  It becomes an
>orphan and a zombie.
>
>For that reason, one of the duties of PID 1 is to call wait() on its 
>children to cleanup orphaned zombies.
>
>I can't remember how Void integrates runit (does it bootstrap off of 
>Miquel van Smoorenburg's init, is it using suckless sinit, or
>something else unusual?), and I wasn't present at the story.  So, it
>sounds unusual that PID 1 isn't reaping children.

A simple executable called runit is PID1 on my machine. My
understanding is it calls a shellscript called 1, then another called
2, then hangs around listening for signals and reaping zombies.

These zombies I'm getting aren't parented to PID1 so PID1 can't reap
them.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt 

Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21