Hi, On my Fedora Core 9 webserver with kernel 2.6.18, init isn't reaping zombie processes. This would be bearable if it wasn't for the process table eventually reaching an upper limit where no new processes can be allocated.
Sample output of ps -el | grep 'Z':
F S UID PID PPID C PRI NI ADDR SZ WCHAN TTY TIME CMD
5 Z 0 2648 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
1 Z 51 2656 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
1 Z 0 2670 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:02 crond <defunct>
4 Z 0 2874 1 0 82 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 mysqld_safe <defunct>
5 Z 0 28104 1 0 76 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 httpd <defunct>
5 Z 0 28716 1 0 76 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:06 lfd <defunct>
5 Z 74 10172 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sshd <defunct>
5 Z 0 11199 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11202 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11205 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11208 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11211 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11240 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11246 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11249 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
5 Z 0 11252 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
1 Z 0 14106 1 0 80 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 anacron <defunct>
5 Z 0 14631 1 0 75 0 - 0 exit ? 00:00:00 sendmail <defunct>
Is this an OS bug? misconfiguration? I'm looking for inspiration as to the source of this problem. Thanks