Thanks Kirk and Chris,
Indeed, my problems started when I mistyped a tar command. I just
rebooted the system. (That's so Windows!) Everything's back to normal
now. But still, it's quite a pain not to be able to kill such a
process. Any prospects of a fix in future kernels? Thanks,
Hidong
Chris Dowling wrote:
>
> Just to reconfirm what's going on here:
>
> this is correct. when tar is making it read or wite command to the kernel
> to read or write system call to/from the tape drive, the driver or the
> kernal is for some reason unable to finish the operation. this results in
> the kernel not being able to complete the system call, and not being able
> to change the process state at all.
>
> this means that the process cannot do *anything*, because it cannot return
> back from the system call.
>
> the process is typically refered to as "trapped in kernel space", and
> cannot be removed without the machine being rebooted.
>
> the first time this happeneed to me was a bit of a shocker, on a
> production machine, so it hung around for 7 months before we had to shut
> the machine down :)
>
> just sharing the experience :)
> Chris.
>
> On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Hidong Kim wrote:
>
> > Yes. The processes still show up. The really bad thing about this
> > problem is that I can't access my tape drive /dev/st0 now.
> >
> >
> >
> > Hidong
> >
> >
> > "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" wrote:
> > >
> > > Have you tried
> > > killall tar
> > >
> > > Kirk
> > >
> > > >At 04:15 PM 3/28/00 -0800, you wrote:
> > > >Hi,
> > > >
> > > >I'm trying to kill some tar processes, but I can't. They show up like
> > > >this with ps aux:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >root 12166 0.0 0.1 1224 432 ? D 15:54 0:00 tar Xcvf
> > > >backup.e
> > > >root 12174 0.0 0.1 1224 432 ? D 15:57 0:00 tar -X
> > > >backup.exc
> > > >root 12209 0.0 0.1 1224 432 ? D 16:01 0:00 tar -X
> > > >backup.exc
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >When I issue a command like 'kill -9 12166', there's no error message,
> > > >but the process doesn't get killed. I'm working as root. How do I kill
> > > >these processes? Thanks,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >Hidong
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >--
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> > > >as the Subject.
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
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> > > as the Subject.
> >
> >
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> >
>
> Chris Dowling.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> A bus station is where a bus stops.
> A train station is where a train stops.
> On my desk, I have a work station......
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