🚀 go-pugleaf

Daniel Simmons (simmdan@ux1.isu.edu) wrote:
: Howdy!
: 
: I'm a sysadmin at the Idaho State University Computer Center.  In the
: computer center we do not have any Next machines, but the Math department
: here has a number of them (but no full time sysadmin).
: 
: Today the professor who does the administration on the machines called
: me to say that he had discovered a number of processes on his file
: server and several workstations which appear to be sleeping (using no
: CPU or memory) but which cannot be killed.
: 
: Here's a couple sample lines from the output of "ps -aux":
: USER       PID  %CPU %MEM VSIZE RSIZE TT STAT  TIME COMMAND
: root        -1   0.0  0.0    0K    0K ?  S     0:00 <mach-task>
: root        -1   0.0  0.0    0K    0K ?  SW<   0:00 <mach-task>
: root        -1   0.0  0.0    0K    0K ?  SW    0:00 <mach-task>
: root        -1   0.0  0.0    0K    0K ?  S     0:04 <mach-task>
: root        -1   0.0  0.0    0K    0K ?    N   0:00 <mach-task>
: root        -1   0.0  0.0    0K    0K ?  ?W<   0:00 <mach-task>
: root        -1   0.0  0.0    0K    0K ?  S     0:00 <mach-task>
: 
: Does anyone have a clue?  I must confess to minimal knowledge of
: NeXTs.  Is a PID of -1 normal for anything?

A CLUE? well certainly not NeXT.  They say this isnt a problem.
Tho it has us rebooting on a regular basis to get rid of these 
Zombie processes.

: 
: I gather that yesterday at one point there were 300-400 of these
: processes on the file-server.
: 
: Apparently, a new process is created anytime he telnets out to another
: machine.  They may also appear under other circumstances, but that is
: the only one he has been able to reproduce consistently.  When the
: system is rebooted, it begins with anywhere from 2-6 of these
: processes.  More appear as time goes on.
: 
: I'd appreciate any help you can give.  
: 

Wish I could help you on this one.  Wish I could help us on this one.
--

                       -=( Paul Wood )=-
              -=( pcwood@astro.ocis.temple.edu )=-