Re: [tlug] Why won't this process die?

["Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com>]

On 16/08/06, Joe Larabell <fred62@???> wrote:

> Some processes ignore TERM -- especially if they're designed to keep running even when
> the shell that started them happens to go away.

Not too many processes ignore TERM on purpose. The most common reason
for SIGTERM to fail is that the process is "hung". SIGKILL causes the
kernel to clean up the process's in-kernel data structures, whether
the process wants to die or not. SIGKILL, of course, also occasionally
fails. This is most likely because the process has invoked a syscall
which is waiting for a lock or in some uninterruptible state.

-Josh