If your system supports autoreaping of zombies you might try enabling that via the following: 
$SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE';

[download]

However, I am not sure if the calls to system you are making will interfere with this or not. I think if you switched to exec it is more likely to work.

In reply to Re: rsh <defunct> processes appear when using fork and system calls by Argel
in thread rsh <defunct> processes appear when using fork and system calls by whatwhat

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