pdfork (2)

Leading comments

Copyright (c) 2009-2010, 2012-2013 Robert N. M. Watson
All rights reserved.

This software was developed at the University of Cambridge Computer
Laboratory with support from a grant from Google, Inc.

This software was developed by SRI International and the University of
Cambridge Computer Laboratory under DARPA/AFRL contract (FA8750-10-C-0237)
("CTSRD"), as part of the DARPA CRASH research programme.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permit...

(The comments found at the beginning of the groff file "man2/pdfork.2freebsd".)

NAME

pdfork pdgetpid pdkill pdwait4 - System calls to manage process descriptors

LIBRARY

Lb libc

SYNOPSIS

In sys/procdesc.h Ft int Fn pdfork int *fdp int flags Ft int Fn pdgetpid int fd pid_t *pidp Ft int Fn pdkill int fd int signum Ft int Fn pdwait4 int fd int *status int options struct rusage *rusage

DESCRIPTION

Process descriptors are special file descriptors that represent processes, and are created using Fn pdfork , a variant of fork(2), which, if successful, returns a process descriptor in the integer pointed to by Fa fdp . Processes created via Fn pdfork will not cause SIGCHLD on termination. Fn pdfork can accept the flags:

PD_DAEMON

Instead of the default terminate-on-close behaviour, allow the process to live until it is explicitly killed with kill(2).

This option is not permitted in capsicum(4) capability mode (see cap_enter2).

Fn pdgetpid queries the process ID (PID) in the process descriptor Fa fd .

Fn pdkill is functionally identical to kill(2), except that it accepts a process descriptor, Fa fd , rather than a PID.

Fn pdwait4 behaves identically to wait4(2), but operates with respect to a process descriptor argument rather than a PID.

The following system calls also have effects specific to process descriptors:

fstat(2) queries status of a process descriptor; currently only the Fa st_mode , Fa st_birthtime , Fa st_atime , Fa st_ctime and Fa st_mtime fields are defined. If the owner read, write, and execute bits are set then the process represented by the process descriptor is still alive.

poll(2) and select(2) allow waiting for process state transitions; currently only POLLHUP is defined, and will be raised when the process dies.

close(2) will close the process descriptor unless PD_DAEMON is set; if the process is still alive and this is the last reference to the process descriptor, the process will be terminated with the signal SIGKILL

and associated functions depend on options PROCDESC described in procdesc(4).

RETURN VALUES

Fn pdfork returns a PID, 0 or -1, as fork(2) does.

Fn pdgetpid and Fn pdkill return 0 on success and -1 on failure.

Fn pdwait4 returns a PID on success and -1 on failure.

ERRORS

These functions may return the same error numbers as their PID-based equivalents (e.g. Fn pdfork may return the same error numbers as fork(2)), with the following additions:

Bq Er EINVAL

The signal number given to Fn pdkill is invalid.

Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE

The process descriptor being operated on has insufficient rights (e.g. CAP_PDKILL for Fn pdkill ) .

SEE ALSO

close(2), fork(2), fstat(2), kill(2), poll(2), wait4(2), capsicum(4), procdesc(4)

HISTORY

The Fn pdfork , Fn pdgetpid , Fn pdkill and Fn pdwait4 system calls first appeared in Fx 9.0 .

Support for process descriptors mode was developed as part of the TrustedBSD Project.

AUTHORS

An -nosplit These functions and the capability facility were created by An Robert N. M. Watson Aq rwatson@FreeBSD.org and An Jonathan Anderson Aq jonathan@FreeBSD.org at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory with support from a grant from Google, Inc.

BUGS

Fn pdwait4 has not yet been implemented.