[LUG] My server is <defunct>

[Jonathan Melhuish <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello from France!  Ahh, the wonders of the Internet, eh?  You can go 
somewhere relatively interesting and still do the same boring crap you do at 
home ;-)

Anyway, I've been having a few problems with my web server.  It seemed to 
reboot itself several times on saturday, then when I tried to reboot it, it 
finally died and didn't come back until the support staff at UK2 *finally* 
fixed it today.

However, there are two things that are puzzling me somewhat:

*  /var/log dissappeared.  Completely.  Whilst I was using the machine.  My 
root password is still the same, I can't find any other evidence of being 
hacked.

*  There are loads (maybe 100 or so) processes listed as <defunct> in the 
process list.  I think I've seen this before, but only for an instant before 
they die.  Why are they kicking around, and will this become a problem?

Merci en avance...

Jon

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