[Allen Rueter][AR] [points out][ref] that one way to kill a defunct process is to kill its parent or child: # ps -ef | grep '\|PPID' UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD zzz 13868 1 0 0:00 # ps -ef | grep '13868\|PPID' UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD zzz 13868 1 0 0:00 1 zzz 16596 13868 0 0:00 a.out # kill -9 16596 [AR]: http://www.cts.wustl.edu/~allen/ [ref]: http://www.cts.wustl.edu/~allen/kill-defunct-process.html [[!tag tags/linux]]