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killing abandoned processes

This can be worse than annoying - some badly written processes start sucking resources when abandoned. I have seen that frequently in COBOL apps.

You'll see those in "ps" with a lot of accumulated CPU time and no tty - so at least they are easy to spot!

On some systems, we've set up cron jobs that hunt for those at regular intervals because too many will bring the system to its knees.

Message-ID: <3BA142F7.B214F069@att.net> 
From: Steve Fabac <smfabac@att.net>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc
Subject: Re: Users Process still active after logging out
X-UserInfo1: TSU[@SJGXRWQBWLYMBCB^]\@PJ_^PBQLGPQRZQMIWIWTEPIB_NVUAH_[BL[\IRKIANGGJBFNJF_DOLSCENSY^U@FRFUEXR@KFXYDBPWBCDQJA@X_DCBHXR[C@\EOKCJLED_SZ@RMWYXYWE_P@\\GOIW^@SYFFSWHFIXMADO@^[ADPRPETLBJ]RDGENSKQQZN
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 05:19:57 GMT

John DuBois wrote:
> 
> In article <9nqncg$2nd$1@uranium.btinternet.com>,
> Jim Simpson <jim@hcsltd.com> wrote:
> >connecting to a scounix server over tcpip network, user ends session by
> >closing the window before logging off. The user is not listed by Who but the
> >processes this user started are still active and the ttyp is still in use
> >therefore the number of users are increasing over time until the server is
> >shutdown
> 
> If the user isn't listed by 'who', it indicates that the system detected the
> terminated connection and logged the user out.  In this case, a hangup signal
> is sent to the user's processes.  However, poorly written applications are free
> to ignore that signal or even to arrange that no such signal is sent at logout
> time.  Without further information, all we can say is that the culprits most
> likely include both the user and the application that was running on the
> server.
> 
>         John
> --
> John DuBois  spcecdt@armory.com.  KC6QKZ/AE  http://www.armory.com./~spcecdt/

John,

I have the same problem with a COBOL application on one of my client's 
SCO 5.0.5 machines. Always the same user and always running the same
program.  I have not been able to get the programmer to track down
any code to "ignore hang-up."

I have just started writing the following script to run from cron
to kill the orphaned processes. It's still in testing (just logging now
looking for inappropriate processes listed in killidle.log) but when I
tried uncommenting the system( "kill " $2 ) command, it killed the
specified process. 

kill -9 " $2 to cache oany process that ignores the -15 signal.

> :
> # @(#) killidle 1.1 9/12/01 smf
> # Script to test for abandoned vedco processes and to kill them
> #
> ps -ef | awk ' BEGIN { 
>    while ( "who" | getline ) {
>            aray[ $2 ] = $1
> #          print $2, $1        # uncomment for debugging
>    }
>       system( "sleep 6" )
> }
>  $6 ~ /ttyp/ { 
>    if ( aray[ $6 ] > "" ) next
>    if ( $8  == "login" ) next
>    system( "date >> /usr/adm/killidle.log" )
>    close( "date >> /usr/adm/killidle.log" )
>    print $0 >> "/usr/adm/killidle.log"
>    close("/usr/adm/killidle.log")
> #  print $2, $6, $1          # uncomment for debugging
>   bob = system( "kill -15  " $2 )
> } '

-- 

                                      Steve Fabac
                                       S.M. Fabac & Associates
                                        816/765-1670
 

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