I have a daemonized script that is producing zombies under 5.8, but running prefectly fine under 5.6.1. Here is the script:

#!/usr/bin/perl
# report_server
# this script will run in the background and pickup
# .pld files waiting to be run.


# load up our modules
use Storable;
use MyModule::SEO;
use Proc::Fork;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use POSIX;

# set some globals
use vars ('%processing','$seo_master') ;

# this code was borrowed from Net::Daemonize

# this code runs in conjunction with Apache and needs to
# share ownership with it for the files it generates

my $uid = getpwnam('nobody');

$< = $> = $uid;
if( $< != $uid ){
    die "Couldn't become uid \"$uid\"\n";
}

POSIX::setuid( $uid ) || die "Couldn't POSIX::setuid to \"$uid\" [$!]\
+n";

# end borrowed code

use Proc::Daemon;

Proc::Daemon::Init;

# create our master object
# should this be in the loop?
# Its only purpose is to log file pickup
# to the master log file, handled by the
# error_to_log method

my $master_seo = MyModule::SEO->new;
$master_seo->_debug(1);

&loop;

sub loop {

    # create our array of temp files to check
    my @pld_file = </web/tmp/*.pld>;

    foreach my $file (@pld_file) {


        # delete a file from the processing hash if it
        # has been in has for more then 20 minutes and
        # the file still exists
    if (time > ($processing{$file}[1] + 1200) ) {
        delete $processing{$file};
    }
        
        # skip file if it is still flagged as being processed
        next if $processing{$file}[0] == 1;

        # log file pick
        $master_seo->error_to_log("Picked up $file for processing",1);
 
        # set our values to check against on future requests
        $processing{$file}[0] = 1;
    $processing{$file}[1] = time;
        $file =~ /(\d{2,})\.pld/;
        my $number = $1;
        child {

        exec('/web/bin/report_generator.pl',$number);
                # in case it doesn't spawn just exit
                exit;
        };
    }

    # wait 15 seconds and then check again

    sleep 15;
    &loop;
}
[download]

The code is run unchanged between the development server (5.8) and the production server (5.6.1). The script has been in place in production and running without a problem for over 46 days. A recent upgrade of the development server to 5.8 exposed the zombie issue.

Is there a better way to daemonize the script and run as a specific none root user?

What is a way to debug to find the cause of zombies?

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