Problems with <defunct> processes

[Saumen K Dutta]

Is there any way to kill a <defunct> process without rebooting the system.

What has happened is something like this

In a C program I invoked a background process in some node using rsh.

system("rsh node1 command&");

This creates a background process and runs the command. After running the
above file few times I saw that the system is loaded with many unwanted
processes all of which are swapped to the disk and seems to be waiting
for some DISK I/O for some unknown reason. The process table shows them
to be the defunct processes. 

I tried to kill them in so many different ways known to me. Is there 
anybody who can help me to sort out the problem. I want to kill these
unwanted processes without rebooting the whole system. I need the
solution urgently.

Please send e-mail if you have any idea

Thanks



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