In computing, a zombie process is a process that has completed execution but still has an entry in the process table. This can occur when the parent process exits before the child process, or when the child process crashes. Zombie processes can accumulate over time, leading to performance problems and system instability.
There are a few ways to avoid zombie processes. One is to ensure that the parent process always waits for the child process to exit before exiting itself. Another is to use a process monitor to automatically reap zombie processes.