Differences between version 2 and predecessor to the previous major change of SIGKILL.
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| Newer page: | version 2 | Last edited on Thursday, August 16, 2007 3:02:05 pm | by BenStaz | Revert |
| Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Friday, September 27, 2002 8:53:08 am | by PerryLorier | Revert |
@@ -1,7 +1,13 @@
!!!Signal: KILL
This signal causes your program to terminate. This signal cannot be caught or ignored. This is always signal #9. To terminate a process IMMEDIATELY, send it a signal 9. Note the process will not have a chance to clean up.
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+!!kill -9 is a BAD Idea
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+The command ''kill -9 (or -KILL)'' should only be used as a very last resort!
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+The KILL signal does not allow a process to run any cleanup code, which means using ''kill -9'' may leave child processes of a parent orphaned, temporary files open, shared memory segments active, and sockets busy. This leaves the system in a messy state, and could lead to unanticipated and hard to debug problems.
!Note:
* ZombieProcess''''es in the "Z" state cannot be killed, they are dead already and are waiting on their parents to reap them
* Processes that are blocked in the "D" state will not die until they recover from their D status.
