kill -9 does nothing

[David Christensen]

On 8/8/19 9:05 AM, hw wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> how do you get rid of unresponsive processes?  Even 'kill -9' does
> nothing, and Firefox has a tendency to become unresponsive.  I can't
> restart the server all the time and kick off all users in the process.

My FreeBSD 11.2 server does not have X or Firefox -- it has the console, 
an SSH server, jails, and one service per jail.  Each jail has its 
primary server plus the SSH server.


I use a laptop and an SSH client to do administration on the jail host 
and within each jail.  The laptop has Firefox with Disconnect, HTTPS 
Everywhere, NoScript, and Privacy Badger extensions.  Firefox is set  to 
remember nothing.  The extensions are set restrictive.  I try to do one 
browsing task at a time.  I temporarily loosen the various settings as 
required as I visit each site.  When a task is done, I close Firefox and 
open a fresh copy for the next task; this wipes the old data and resets 
most settings.


When Firefox locks up, I try to close it.  If that fails, I use a 
terminal to kill it.  If that fails, I reboot the laptop.  The server 
has been up for 25 days.


David