Dear

my application run has a daemon
When the daemon load, it create a Timer function as a class(TThread). This Timer thread has a loop and create an another Thread (called "SendStatus" each 5 minutes)

function that load thread :
###############################################
procedure mTimer.Execute;
var
   Pool:integer;
   xPool:longint;
   Myini:TIniFile;
   thread:SendStatus;
begin
while not Terminated do
  begin
     FConfigFilePath:='/etc/artica/artica-agent.conf';
     LoadSettings;
     xPool:=(Fpool*60)*1000;
     logs('mTimer.Execute->initilize pooling for ' + IntTostr(Fpool) + '
milliseconds for each loop-> '+ IntTostr(Fpool) + ' minutes (from ' +
FConfigFilePath + ')');
     LoadSettings;
     logs('mTimer.Execute->initilize Thread Sendstatus');
                  thread:=SendStatus.Create; //Creating the new thread
                  thread.Resume;//Executing the new thread
                  thread.free;//Terminate the new thread
      logs('mTimer.Execute->kill Thread Sendstatus');
     if FMustReload=1 then begin
        Myini:=TIniFile.Create(FConfigFilePath);
        Myini.WriteInteger('ACTIONS','ReloadSettings',1);
        LoadSettings;
         xPool:=(Fpool*60)*1000;
         logs('mTimer.Execute->Reload settings -> initilize pooling for
' + IntTostr(xPool) + ' milliseconds for each loop');
        MyIni.free;
      end;
     Sleep(xPool);
  end;
end;
###############################################

The "SendStatus" execute sometimes an external program writen in fpc called "articacrypt".

the function just use Execl to execute external program
###############################################
procedure
SendStatus.DeCryptFile(Frompath:string;ToPath:string;PassPharse:string;SETT:KLNetSettings);
      var passphrase,commandline,Fbin_path:string;
    begin
    Fbin_path:=SETT.binaries_path;
    if Length(SETT.artica_crypt_key)=0 then begin
        SETT.logs('SendStatus.artica_crypt_key -> null aborting..');
       exit;
    end;
    commandline:=Fbin_path + '/articacrypt false ' + Frompath + ' ' +
ToPath + ' ' +  PassPharse;
    Execl(commandline);
    SETT.logs('SendStatus.DeCryptFile -> ' + ToPath + ' was process');
    exit;
end;
###############################################

this external program kill itself by calling halt() function at the end of the code.

My problem is that each execution of this program will add <defunc> in the Linux system :

example of ps -aux :

root 25992 0.0 0.1 20500 2292 pts/0 Sl 19:45 0:00 /opt/artica/bin/articaagentd
root 26008 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:45 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26009 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:45 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26010 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:45 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26011 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:45 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26012 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:45 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26134 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:47 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26135 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:47 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26136 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:47 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26137 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:47 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26138 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:47 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26247 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:49 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26248 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:49 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26249 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:49 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26250 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:49 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26251 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:49 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26388 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:51 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26389 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:51 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26390 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:51 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26391 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:51 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26392 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:51 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26511 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:53 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26512 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:53 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26513 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:53 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26514 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:53 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26515 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:53 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26662 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:55 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26663 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:55 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26664 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:55 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26665 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:55 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26666 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:55 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26787 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:57 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26788 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:57 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26789 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:57 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26790 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:57 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26791 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:57 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26886 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:59 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26887 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:59 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26888 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:59 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26889 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:59 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 26890 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 19:59 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 27035 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 20:01 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 27036 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 20:01 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 27037 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 20:01 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 27038 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 20:01 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>
root 27039 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/0 Z 20:01 0:00 [articacrypt] <defunct>

Please how to clean theses "defunct" on the system...??????????????

Don't use execl but sysutils.executeprocess.

(fp)execl is an internal function that requires a lot of special borderconditions, one of it being called after a fork, and another that the mainprogram must wait for it.

See unix manpages, books or the executeprocess implementations for details.

You must do a fpWaitPID() call for each child process that you create.

The best way to do this is to install a SIGCHILD handler. The SIGCHILD signal is sent to a process whenever a child process exits.

In the SIGCHILD handler, you can then do the fpWaitPID() call.

Michael.

ExecProcess waits for the child process to exit.
This does not help him, as I assume the process needs to run asynchronously ?

Michael.

Many thanks but how to implement this kind of procedure SIGCHILD on the child process.

i have only these informations about ??
http://community.freepascal.org:10000/docs-html/rtl/baseunix/sigchld.html

If i understant the process must wait until the child process send Kill ? But how to receive the pid form the child process ?

if i understand the function could be ??:

###############################################
   Execl(commandline);
	fpWaitPid(??,0,WNOHANG);
###############################################

Best rgeardes