zombie problem

[Harris Reavin]

(bug food)
     We have a problem with zombie processes that is only solved by
rebooting. I would like to know if anyone has a less drastic solution.
We are running BSD 4.2 on a VAX 750 and the CCI port of BSD 4.2 on a
CCI Power 6. On both systems we sometimes get zombie exiting processes
that are usually created when some hung process is killed. Sending
-HUP to the init process restarts the getty but the zombie prevents the
new login on the port. The following ps -l shows the situation.

      F UID   PID  PPID CP PRI NI ADDR  SZ  RSS WCHAN STAT TT  TIME COMMAND
1008401  89 14797     1  0   4  0  9FD   0    0 53AFC I    11  0:03 <exiting>
1008000   0 15569     1  0   4  0    0  25    0 53AFC IW   11  0:00 - 7 (getty)
1008401 159 16740     1  0   4  0  F54   0    0 53F0C I    1b  0:01 <exiting>
1008000   0 28883     1  0   4  0    0  25    0 53F0C IW   1b  0:00 - 2 (getty)
1008001   0     1     0  0   5  0  624  24    6 5D300 S    ?   1:19 init

-- 
		                        Harris Reavin

UUCP:	{umcp-cs!eneevax || seismo!rlgvax!elsie}!imsvax!harris