defunct process. what is this process and why this problem occur?

From: ½Å½Â¿ø <swsin_at_kornet.net>
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 13:37:04 +0900
Message-ID: <9cdh92$7p5$1@news1.kornet.net>

suddenly there were limitless defunct process like below. The O/S is solaris 7 in sun enterprise 6000 and oracle version is 8.0.6. The system didn't work. When I tried to change user from root to oracle or any other user, error message was shown(Vfork failed-maybe). Please tell me what is this process and why this problem occur.

oracle 23241  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23242  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23243  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23244  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23245  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23246  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23247  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23248  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23249  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23250  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23251  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23252  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23253  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23254  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23255  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23256  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23257  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23258  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23259  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23260  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23261  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23262  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23263  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct>
  oracle 23264  3413  0                   0:00 <defunct

Received on Fri Apr 27 2001 - 23:37:04 CDT