on my system with cronie-1.4.8, I noticed crond had spawned child processes
but when child exited, it left zombie there:
I think cronie should add a child dead signal and call wait there,
should be easy to implement
2086 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond
3499 ? S 0:00 \_ /USR/SBIN/CROND
3500 ? Zs 0:00 \_ [run-parts] <defunct>
$ ps fj 2086 3499 3500
PPID PID PGID SID TTY TPGID STAT UID TIME COMMAND
1 2086 2086 2086 ? -1 Ss 0 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond
2086 3499 2086 2086 ? -1 S 0 0:00 \_ /USR/SBIN/CROND
3499 3500 3500 3500 ? -1 Zs 0 0:00 \_
[run-parts] <defunct>
$ ps fu 2086 3499 3500
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 2086 0.0 0.0 11368 472 ? Ss Jun22 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond
root 3499 0.0 0.0 34700 1244 ? S 23:01 0:00 \_
/USR/SBIN/CROND
root 3500 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Zs 23:01 0:00
\_ [run-parts] <defunct>
$ pacman -Qo /usr/sbin/crond
/usr/sbin/crond is owned by cronie 1.4.8-1
$ pacman -Qi cronie
Name : cronie
Version : 1.4.8-1
URL :
https://fedorahosted.org/cronie/
Licenses : custom:BSD
Groups : base
Provides : cron
Depends On : pam bash run-parts
Optional Deps : smtp-server: sending cron job output via email
Required By : logrotate
Conflicts With : cron
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 188.00 KiB
Packager : Gaetan Bisson <bisson(a)archlinux.org>
Architecture : x86_64
Build Date : Tue 28 Jun 2011 08:43:10 AM PDT
Install Date : Sat 19 Nov 2011 12:24:55 AM PST
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Description : Daemon that runs specified programs at scheduled
times and related tools