ttyq17 hung up

[YATES, JOHN H.]

w on our system shows a user in limbo (lapierre):

  2:43pm  up 34 days, 21:45,  8 users,  load average: 5.32, 5.51, 5.74
User     tty from           login@  idle   JCPU   PCPU  what
yates    q4                  1:48pm           10         w 
lapierre q17                27Feb91 3days                -

This occurred when he somehow hung up the X terminal he was on, and we
just powered it off/on. I recall blowing away some q17 processes, but
now there are none.

How can I (short of rebooting, I can't) cause only the q17 line to init?
It is skewing my number of user's watch by 1. It is not as simple as
just leaving an unterminated data entry which will be overwritten when
the tty's reace q17 again (I tried!). It is honestly hung up by either
X software or other system software, but does not appear in a 'ps -elf' .

I just tried '/etc/telinit Q' and it appears to have done nothing.

Thanks, John
yates at a.chem.upenn.edu