defunct process when stop and start web server

Question

Dear all,
I am using Sun One Web Server 6.1 SP6. When i try to stop and then start the web server. The <defunct> process is generated (his parent PID points to webservd).
The following is the result:
1st stop and start the web server (defunct process is generated)
2nd stop and start the web server (defunct process disappears)
3rd stop and start the web server(defunct process is generated)
4th stop and start the web server (defunct process disappears)
Here is my magnus.conf
ServerID www
ServerName www.abc.edu.hk
ErrorLog /i03_01/SUNWwbsvr616/https-www/logs/errors
PidLog /i03_01/SUNWwbsvr616/https-www/logs/pid
User nobody
DNS off
Security off
ClientLanguage en
AdminLanguage en
DefaultLanguage en
RqThrottle 512
StackSize 131072
Init fn="load-modules" funcs="caspreq,caspinit,casptrans" shlib="/i03_01/casp/module/sunos5_optimized/netscape_6.x/nes_casp2.so"
Init fn="caspinit" casplib="/i03_01/casp/asp-server-3078"
Init fn="load-modules" funcs="htaccess-init,htaccess-find" shlib="/i03_01/SUNWwbsvr616/plugins/htaccess/htaccess.so"
Init fn="htaccess-init"
Init access="/i03_01/SUNWwbsvr616/https-www/logs/access" format.access="%Ses->client.ip% - %Req->vars.auth-user% [%SYSDATE%] \"%Req->reqpb.clf-request%\" %Req->srvhdrs.clf-status% %Req->srvhdrs.content-length% \"%Req->headers.referer%\" \"%Req->headers.user-agent%\"" fn="flex-init"
Init fn="load-modules" shlib="/i03_01/SUNWwbsvr616/bin/https/lib/libj2eeplugin.so" shlib_flags="(global|now)"
TempDir /tmp/https-www-61c30017
# Load modules for PHP
Init fn="load-modules" funcs="php4_init,php4_execute,php4_auth_trans" shlib="/i03_01/SUNWwbsvr616/bin/libphp4.so"
Init fn="php4_init" LateInit="yes" errorString="Failed to initialize PHP!" [php_ini="/i03_01/SUNWwbsvr616/https-www/config/php.ini"]
# Enable statistics
Init fn="stats-init" update-interval="5" virtual-servers="100" profiling="yes"
any ideas? Thank

Answer 1

- which OS & version are you running into this issue ?
- By definition, defunct processes (or zombie processes) are processes that have exited prior to it's parent calling a wait() on it to get the return status .
- couple of things I can think of to narrow down the cause of this issue
1. disable ASP & php plugins and see if this still causes this issue
2. try starting the web server with log level to finest and see fi you get any useful information from the server error logs
hope this helps