[DRBD-user] Zombie, Zombie?

Lars Ellenberg Lars.Ellenberg at linbit.com
Mon Apr 26 10:43:06 CEST 2004

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


/ 2004-04-26 03:15:04 +0200
\ Andreas Semt:
> Hello list!
> 
> I use DRBD 0.6.12 (with heartbeat 1.21). Sometimes I get some real high 
> load on my machine (load average around 6) and a zombie process like 
> drbd_syncer_2 or drbd_syncer_3. I believe the zombie process causes the 
> high load. Also i lost a drbd connection without reason (one connection 
> of four).
> Additional information: the zombie processes disappear after some time 
> and the load is normal again. Zombies exist only on the drbd "PRIMARY" 
> machine (all drbd devices in primary mode).
> 
> My questions:
> 
> 1. Could it be a zombie process who killed the drbd connection?

No. It is only killed *after* the connection was lost.
Unfortunately it is not always reaped immediately.
Zombie processes cannot cause load, because they are dead.
They only waste some memory and process slots.

> 2. Why these Zombies live on my machine?
If you care, you can use 0.6.12 CVS HEAD, which differs basically only
by a "reparent to init" call right after our thread startup, as it
should have been from the very begining. now, the "zombies" are reaped
by init almost immediately after their death.


	Lars



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