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Questions to Determine

  • What is the parent process (PPID) of the zombie processes?
  • Is the parent process calling wait() or waitpid() to reap child processes?
  • Does the parent have a SIGCHLD handler installed?
  • What is the maximum PID limit on the system (/proc/sys/kernel/pid_max)?
  • How fast are zombies accumulating?
  • Can the parent process be restarted safely?
  • Is the zombie accumulation a bug in the application or a configuration issue?
  • What happens to the zombies if the parent is killed?