From: Bob Booth - UIUC (booth@UIUC.EDU)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 12:27:47 EDT
Many times, zombies show up like this when there is a hung I/O. You won't
be able to kill them, until the I/O completes (and it might not). You might
want to look in detail at what dmcpu was doing (like closing a database that
has not been shutdown yet). This happens on TSM a lot when you shutdown the
server, but there are still outstanding tape I/Os completing. As soon as the
I/O completes the processes go away. Just 2 cents worth.
bob
On Fri, Aug 02, 2002 at 11:32:02AM -0400, Keith Reed wrote:
> Looking into a user complaint on an AIX 4.3.3, I saw about 170 processes
> that looked like this from a ps -ef command:
>
> 12:03AM up 18 days, 56 mins, 5 users, load average: 3.24, 3.39, 3.67
> dmcpu 177948 1 1 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 178332 1 1 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 178670 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 178830 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 179058 1 1 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 179382 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 179704 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 179952 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 180042 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 180354 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 180878 1 1 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 181578 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 182598 1 1 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 182928 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
> dmcpu 183084 1 0 Dec 31 - 0:00 []
>
> The processes could not be removed with a kill -9.
> It took a reboot to remove them.
>
> Now, today, on another 4.3.3 box, when I run top I see the following only
> until the first refresh of the processes from top:
>
> 0 root 0 -20 20k 24k non 3:59 33.2/ 0.1
> 0 root 0 -20 20k 24k non 3:59 33.2/ 0.1
> 0 root 0 -20 20k 24k non 3:59 33.2/ 0.1
>
> After top refreshes that first time, I never see them again.
>
> Has anyone seen either of these before? Any theories?
>
> --
> Keith Reed
> UNIX/SAN Administrator
> CareTech Solutions, Inc.
> Detroit Medical Center
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