A Linux administrator is troubleshooting a server that has become unresponsive. After running the ps aux command, the administrator identifies a critical process with a 'D' in the STAT column. Attempts to terminate the process with kill -9 are unsuccessful. What does this process state indicate?
The process has been stopped by a job control signal and is awaiting a resume signal.
The process is in an interruptible sleep and is waiting for an event or signal.
The process is in an uninterruptible sleep, waiting for an I/O operation to complete.
The process is a zombie and is waiting for its parent process to read its exit status.
The correct answer identifies the process as being in an uninterruptible sleep state, which is denoted by 'D' in the output of commands like ps. This state typically occurs when a process is blocked, waiting for an I/O operation (like reading from a disk or a network resource) to complete. Processes in this state cannot be interrupted by signals, including SIGKILL (kill -9), until the I/O operation finishes or times out. This is a protective measure to prevent data corruption.
Interruptible sleep (S): A process is waiting for an event to complete but can be woken up by signals. This is a normal, common state for idle processes.
Zombie (Z): A process that has terminated, but its entry remains in the process table because its parent process has not yet read its exit status.
Stopped (T): A process that has been suspended, usually by a job control signal like SIGSTOP (e.g., by pressing Ctrl+Z).
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What does the 'D' state in the STAT column of `ps aux` signify?
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Why can't a process in uninterruptible sleep (`D` state) be terminated by `kill -9`?
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How does uninterruptible sleep (`D` state) differ from interruptible sleep (`S` state)?
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