XK0-005 Question #1271: Real Exam Question with Answer & Explanation

Question

An administrator is troubleshooting to determine why backups are failing on a particular server. The administrator runs the ps command and analyzes the following output. The administrator runs kill -9 10112 yet the process remains. Which of the following BEST describes the issue and how to fix it?

Options

• AThe backup process is still running and needs to be killed with kill -9 --force 10112.
• BThe backup process is a zombie process, and the system needs to be rebooted.
• CThe backup process is out of memory, and more memory needs to be added to the system.
• DThe backup process is using 100% of system resources and needs to be rescheduled with renice.

Explanation

If a process remains after being terminated with kill -9, it is likely a zombie process, indicating its parent has not reaped its exit status. In such cases, the system typically needs to be rebooted to clear the process.

Common mistakes.

• A. The kill -9 command sends a SIGKILL signal, which is the most forceful way to terminate a process; there is no --force option, and if kill -9 fails, the process is not actively running in a way that can be killed.
• C. A zombie process is not actively consuming memory or CPU; it's a defunct entry in the process table. Thus, adding more memory would not resolve the zombie state.
• D. Zombie processes are not actively using system resources. renice is used to change the scheduling priority of active processes, which is irrelevant for a zombie process.

Concept tested. Linux zombie processes and process management

Reference. https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/signal.7.html

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