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ape4 3 days ago

And there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_process too

Polizeiposaune 3 days ago | parent [-]

Not the same thing by any means - they don't indicate something is wrong with kernel or hardware.

The zombie process state is a normal transient state for all exiting processes where the only remaining function of the process is as a container for the exiting process's id and exit status; they go away once the parent process calls some flavor of the "wait" system call to collect the exit status. A pileup of zombies indicates a userspace bug: a negligent parent process that isn't collecting the exit status in a timely manner.

thwarted 3 days ago | parent [-]

Additionally, there are a few more process accounting things, rusage, that zombie processes hold until reaped. See wait3(2), wait4(2) and getrusage(2).