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From: Charlie Brady <charlieb-supervision@budge.apana.org.au>
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Subject: RE: runit not collecting zombies
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:13:04 -0500 (EST)
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Cc: Alex Efros <powerman@powerman.name>, supervision@list.skarnet.org
To: rehan khan <rehan.khan@dsl.pipex.com>
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On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, rehan khan wrote:

> I don't think the kernel is implicated if you haven't restarted the 
> machine.

Well *I* don't think that runit-init is implicated, since it hasn't been 
restarted.

So where does that leave us?

My understanding is that there are only two items of software involved in 
the reaping of zombies - the kernel, and process 1 (i.e. runit-init).

Given their relative complexities, I'd say that a bug in the kernel is 
more likely than a bug in runit-init. Gerrit has looked for a bug in 
runit-init and not found one. Other people run the same runit-init as 
Alex, but a different kernel, and don't see the problem. That also makes 
me suspect a kernel problem.

If you were to supply me with a malicious bash, how would it be able to 
create zombies which my runit-init did not reap? IOW, I don't see how bash 
could be implicated.