# Supervise - Solved

## dev-null-devil

I have these programs running on my system:

```
 3168 ?        S      0:00 supervise qmail-pop3d

 3169 ?        S      0:00 supervise log

 3170 ?        S      0:00 supervise qmail-send

 3171 ?        S      0:00 supervise log

 3172 ?        S      0:00 supervise qmail-smtpd

 3178 ?        S      0:00 supervise log

11996 ?        Z      0:00 [supervise] <defunct>

11997 ?        Z      0:00 [supervise] <defunct>

11998 ?        Z      0:00 [supervise] <defunct>

11999 ?        Z      0:00 [supervise] <defunct>

12000 ?        Z      0:00 [supervise] <defunct>

12001 ?        Z      0:00 [supervise] <defunct>

```

And i can't "kill -9/killall" them, i dont know what they do, and no manual can be found for supervise. Any ideas?

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## jesta

Hello, well you cant kill them because they are already dead, Zombies, note the Z flag. The only way i know of getting rid of them is to reboot. Normally they are a sign of bad programming, but i doubt this is the case as supervise was written by DJB, who is renowned for good code and shall we say strong opinions. Supervise is used to keep an eye on server processes. You have it because you have got Qmail installed. http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/supervise.html is some more info. http://cr.yp.to is DJBs home page. 

One way you may of produced these zombies is killed supervise's parent process so there is noone to wait(2) for them.

I'm not sure this is possible on linux though, certainly on my home turf BSD init wait's for parentless children.

I think what you need to do it read up on linux process's and stop being so trigger happy with kill.

HTH

Pete

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## dev-null-devil

I solved it. ps axuf show who the parent process is, i just killed it. Then afterwards, the other supervise-processes didn't had any parent so i could just kill them with killall supervise. Wee!

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## xedx

there's just something wrong with your qmail config(/service/?)

 :Smile: 

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## dev-null-devil

Yes, but the fact is that i dont even use qmail. I use exim and that processes must have been there since i've uninstalled qmail and installed exim instead. Weird? Belive it or not.   :Mr. Green: 

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## Rafixus

I had an upgrade of qmail/courier-imap/mysql and vpopmail and I too got these errors about defunct processes. I tried the "killall" thing but nothing helped. I eventuallt rebooted the mail server (thankfully I needed to anyway for the new kernel  :Smile:  )

It's working again.... Weird

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