Lots of zombies on HP-UX (2.1, 3.1), all children of remshd

[Tor Lillqvist]

We are experiencing lots of zombie processes on an HP9000 Series 800
running HP-UX 3.1 (the same occurred also in 2.1 and 3.01).  They are
all children of remshd (rshd in BSD) processes (which have no other
children).  All these remshds are sleeping on selwait.  We have a
configuration with a bunch of Series 300 workstations running X
clients on the 840.  Right now, for instance, there are 25 of these
zombies when the system has been up for three days, with perhaps ten
active workstation users.

What could be the problem?  Is there any cure, except writing a perl
script that scans ps now and then, and kills off remshd processes with
a zombie child? 
-- 
Tor Lillqvist
Technical Research Centre of Finland, Computing Services (VTT/ATK)
tml at hemuli.atk.vtt.fi [130.188.52.2]