zombie

[Julian Field]

At 12:07 16/07/2002, you wrote:
>I noticed that I have a mailscanner <defunct> line showing up when I do a
>ps.  Somewhere along the line mailscanner has zombied out.  It's running
>ok from the automatic restart though.
>
>I wouldn't bother mentioning it other than I remember seeing another
>message about the same thing.  Also, when I first noticed it last night I
>was sure it had a different pid than the one it now has.  The zombie's
>current pid is quite recent???

If something has timed out, then you will get a zombie before it is killed
completely. The pid of the zombie shouldn't hang around very long.
--
Julian Field                Teaching Systems Manager
jkf at ecs.soton.ac.uk         Dept. of Electronics & Computer Science
Tel. 023 8059 2817          University of Southampton
                             Southampton SO17 1BJ