How Do You Create a Defunct Process in Unix?

What is defunct process Unix?

On Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems, a zombie process or defunct process is a process that has completed execution but still has an entry in the process table. … If original parent hasn’t reaped it before its own exit then init process ( pid == 1 ) does it at some later time.

What causes a defunct process on the Linux system?

The reason a user may see such entries in the operating system’s process table, is simply because the parent process has not read the status of the process. Orphaned defunct processes are eventually inherited by the system init process and will be removed eventually.