[H-GEN] a process that won't die

Craig ARMOUR c.armour at uq.net.au
Thu Oct 5 20:50:06 EDT 2000


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> 
> host:~# ps aux | grep useradd | grep -v grep
> root     23021  0.0  0.7  1432  672 ?        D    Oct03   0:00 useradd -d /var/run/identd -g nogroup -s /bin/false -u 100 identd

See that D there in between the ? and the date, that's the current mode
the process is in.  from the ps manpage

 D       Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait

basically, that process is waiting for some io, and you won't be able to
kill it untill it gets that io.  bit of a bummer really as usually the
only way to get rid of said process' ( excepting it actually gets the io
it wants ) is to reboot

as for a reason, well... there are many.  You will have to use your noggin
(*GASP* yeah I know... it hurst me too ).  What were you doing when the
process died like this.  what device is this on? etc.. etc...

Cheers
Craig



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