too many DEFUNCT processes

["Bruno Negrao" <redhat engepel com br>]

Hi all,
I have a RedHat 6.2 and it isn't working fine. Look at how many defunct
processes are hanging around:

[root]# ps -ef|grep defunct
vpopmail  2048  2047  0 Sep04 ?        00:00:00 [eliminate-dups <defunct>]
vpopmail 28983 28980  0 Sep10 ?        00:00:00 [eliminate-dups <defunct>]
vpopmail  1941  1940  0 Sep10 ?        00:00:00 [eliminate-dups <defunct>]
root     11837 11833  0 Sep10 ?        00:00:00 [cat <defunct>]
root     15870 15869  0 Sep10 ?        00:00:00 [su <defunct>]
root      3996  3994  0 Sep11 ?        00:00:00 [cut <defunct>]
root      2383  2382  0 Sep12 ?        00:00:00 [date <defunct>]
root     19031 19030  0 Sep12 ?        00:00:00 [su <defunct>]
root      6952  6950  0 Sep13 ?        00:00:00 [grep <defunct>]
root      8991  8990  0 Sep16 ?        00:00:00 [grep <defunct>]
root      4800  4798  0 Sep17 ?        00:00:00 [du <defunct>]
root     17095 17093  0 Sep17 ?        00:00:00 [grep <defunct>]
root     10382 10379  0 Sep17 ?        00:00:00 [sar <defunct>]
vpopmail 31124 31123  0 Sep19 ?        00:00:00 [eliminate-dups <defunct>]
root      1506  1503  0 Sep21 ?        00:00:00 [grep <defunct>]
root     31448 31446  0 Sep22 ?        00:00:00 [grep <defunct>]
root     27411 27409  0 Sep24 ?        00:00:00 [cat <defunct>]
vpopmail  8645  8643  0 Sep24 ?        00:00:00 [eliminate-dups <defunct>]
vpopmail 15938 15937  0 Sep25 ?        00:00:00 [eliminate-dups <defunct>]
root     11418 11415  0 11:40 ?        00:00:00 [sar <defunct>]
vpopmail 28565 28562  0 14:46 ?        00:00:00 [eliminate-dups <defunct>]
root     11691 26606  0 17:09 pts/2    00:00:00 grep defunct

Does somenone could explain why is it happening?

And the worst is that the parent processes of all this defunct childs still
remain in the system - with a T (stopped) status.

Thanks for any help,
-------------------------------------------------
 -- Bruno Negrão -- Suporte
 -- Plugway Acesso Internet Ltda.
 -- (31)34812311