Can't kill a process

[Michael Yep]

Ed Greshko wrote:
> Mike McCarty wrote:
>> Ed Greshko wrote:
>>> Simon Slater wrote:
>>>
>>>>     A quick question for someone: a process running as root can't be
>>>> killed
>>>> by kill PID.  How do I kill it?
>>>
>>> Do a "ps PID"....  If the STAT shows "Z" it means the process is a
>>> zombie.
>>> And, as we all know, you can't kill a zombie.  :-)
>> That's because it's already dead. Just nowhere to send
>> the death signal.
> 
> I wouldn't quite say it that way.  There is a place to send the signal, the
> PID, it is just that the process isn't listening.  It is waiting on something.
> 
So I'm curious now, if the kernel know the process is zombie, why doesnt
 it deallocate it, or remove it from the ps list?

-- 
Michael Yep
Development / Technical Operations
RemoteLink, Inc.
800-362-9446 x164