what do I do when kill -9 dosen't work?

[The Anti-Void]

Okay here is a list of some of the processes running on my machine.

root 506 0.0 0.2 1708 504 ? S Oct29 0:00 /sbin/pump --lookroot 574 0.0 0.1 1444 244 ? S Oct29 0:00 syslogd -m 0
root 579 0.0 0.4 1972 884 ? S Oct29 0:00 klogd -2
root 629 0.0 0.2 2244 488 ? S Oct29 0:00 xinetd -stayaliveroot 641 0.0 0.1 1568 196 ? S Oct29 0:00 crond
xfs 675 0.0 2.3 6048 4544 ? S Oct29 0:20 xfs -droppriv -daroot 688 0.0 0.6 5308 1272 ? S Oct29 0:02 /usr/local/bin/guroot 694 0.0 0.0 1356 12 tty5 S Oct29 0:00 /sbin/mingetty ttroot 695 0.0 0.0 1356 12 tty6 S Oct29 0:00 /sbin/mingetty ttroot 875 0.0 0.6 5308 1272 ? S Oct29 0:01 /usr/local/bin/guroot 876 0.0 0.6 5308 1272 ? S Oct29 0:00 /usr/local/bin/guroot 1624 0.0 0.0 1712 116 ? D Oct29 0:00 mount /dev/cdrom antivoid 1632 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? DW Oct29 0:00 [eject]
antivoid 1639 0.0 0.0 1356 52 ? D Oct29 0:00 eject
root 1950 0.0 0.0 1664 108 ? D Oct29 0:00 mount /dev/cdrom
root 2057 0.0 0.0 1356 32 tty2 S Oct29 0:00 /sbin/mingetty ttroot 2169 0.0 0.0 1664 108 ? D Oct29 0:00 mount /dev/cdrom
antivoid 7828 0.0 0.5 3916 1116 ? D 08:18 0:00 /usr/local/games/antivoid 8028 0.0 0.5 3916 1116 ? D 08:21 0:00 /usr/local/games/antivoid 8038 0.0 0.4 4280 892 ? D 08:21 0:00 heroes3
antivoid 8192 0.0 0.4 4276 880 ? D 08:22 0:00 heroes3
antivoid 8229 0.0 6.8 96752 13036 ? D 08:26 0:01 /usr/local/games/antivoid 8238 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 08:26 0:00 [sof-bin <defunctroot 8448 0.0 0.5 2336 1028 ? S 08:30 0:00 su
root 8452 0.0 0.7 2564 1424 ? S 08:30 0:00 bash
antivoid 8838 0.0 1.1 9884 2224 ? DN 08:31 0:00 sc3u
root 8840 0.0 1.1 9884 2224 ? DN 08:32 0:00 sc3u
antivoid 9030 0.0 0.5 3920 1124 ? D 08:40 0:00 /usr/local/games/root 9075 0.0 0.6 2336 1228 tty1 S 08:41 0:00 login -- antivoidroot 9077 0.0 0.2 1356 416 tty3 S 08:41 0:00 /sbin/mingetty ttroot 9079 0.0 0.2 1356 416 tty4 S 08:41 0:00 /sbin/mingetty ttantivoid 9080 0.0 0.6 2480 1332 tty1 S 08:41 0:00 -bash
root 9121 0.0 0.5 2340 1024 tty1 S 08:42 0:00 su
root 9122 0.0 0.7 2544 1388 tty1 S 08:42 0:00 bash
root 9152 0.0 0.3 2628 744 tty1 R 08:44 0:00 ps aux

Things like eject, sc3u, and heroes3 and more just won't die even w/ a kill -9. A lot of them were games that wouldn't start and I just can't seem to get rid of them. I don't want to reboot since with linux I shouldn't have to. Please help!

[wreckd]

<shot in the dark>
try going down to single user, "init S", and then back up to your current runlevel. </shot in the dark>

have you tried killing them as root?

[The Anti-Void]

I've been doing some reading and I found some stuff about immortal zombie processes. Maybe I'm going to have to reboot, perhaps? And yes i've tried killing them as root.

[ 31 October 2001: Message edited by: The Anti-Void ]

[X_console]

Try going to single user:

telinit 1

And then go back to multiuser:

telinit 3

[sym]

Originally posted by The Anti-Void:
<STRONG>I've been doing some reading and I found some stuff about immortal zombie processes. Maybe I'm going to have to reboot, perhaps?</STRONG>

That's what I was told when I asked. But I didn't push the issue though.

[The Anti-Void]

Originally posted by X_console:
<STRONG>Try going to single user:

telinit 1

And then go back to multiuser:

telinit 3</STRONG>

Tried it. Then I did a ps aux. The darn things are still there. Reboot time for me.

[StanLin]

I have mgetty which revives after kill -9 but, well, there is "respawn" in the inittab file. I wonder if this is the reason.

[stiles]

did you do something like start the games from a cdrom then remove the cdrom without umount(ing) /cdrom (or whatever you cdrom mountpoint is)? If you did the type of problems your having is understandable. Mount is being persistent about shuting down the filesystem.

About zombies, if you had a zombie process it would show up as Z in your process table. They don't hurt anything, and don't take up any memory, the only thing they do is take up a PID. If the system doesn't remove the zombie then you would have to reboot to remove it, but unless there are a lot of them it's not worth it. If you do have lots of zombies it's time to figure out why fast ;) .