Defunct processes are processes that have terminated normally, but they remain visible to the Unix/Linux operating system until the parent process reads their status. … Orphaned defunct processes are eventually inherited by the system init process and will be removed eventually.

Where is defunct process in Linux?

How to spot a Zombie Process. Zombie processes can be found easily with the ps command. Within the ps output there is a STAT column which will show the processes current status, a zombie process will have Z as the status. In addition to the STAT column zombies commonly have the words <defunct> in the CMD column as well …

What causes a defunct process on the Linux system and how can you avoid it?

By ignoring the SIGCHLD signal : When a child is terminated, a corresponding SIGCHLD signal is delivered to the parent, if we call the ‘signal(SIGCHLD,SIG_IGN)’, then the SIGCHLD signal is ignored by the system, and the child process entry is deleted from the process table. Thus, no zombie is created.