Zombie Process

Tags

comp-arch

Is a process that has exited but still has an entry in the kernels process table.

This occurs for the child-processes where an entry is still needed to allow the parent process to read its child's exit status. Once you wait on the process its entry is removed from the process table and it's known as a reaped process.

If a long running process never waits on its child then it may lose the ability to fork.