DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages
RFORK(2) DragonFly System Calls Manual RFORK(2)
NAME
rfork -- manipulate process resources
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int
rfork(int flags);
DESCRIPTION
Forking, vforking or rforking are the only ways new processes are
created. The flags argument to rfork() selects which resources of the
invoking process (parent) are shared by the new process (child) or
initialized to their default values. The resources include the open file
descriptor table (which, when shared, permits processes to open and close
files for other processes), and open files. Flags is the logical OR of
some subset of:
RFPROC If set a new process is created; otherwise changes
affect the current process. The current
implementation requires this flag to always be set.
RFNOWAIT If set, the child process will be dissociated from the
parent. Upon exit the child will not leave a status
for the parent to collect. See wait(2).
RFFDG If set, the invoker's file descriptor table (see
intro(2)) is copied; otherwise the two processes share
a single table.
RFCFDG If set, the new process starts with a clean file
descriptor table. Is mutually exclusive with RFFDG.
RFMEM If set, the kernel will force sharing of the entire
address space, typically by sharing the hardware page
table directly. The child will thus inherit and share
all the segments the parent process owns, whether they
are normally shareable or not. The stack segment is
not split (both the parent and child return on the
same stack) and thus rfork() with the RFMEM flag may
not generally be called directly from high level
languages including C. May be set only with RFPROC.
A helper function is provided to assist with this
problem and will cause the new process to run on the
provided stack. See rfork_thread(3) for information.
RFSIGSHARE If set, the kernel will force sharing the sigacts
structure between the child and the parent.
RFLINUXTHPN If set, the kernel will return SIGUSR1 instead of
SIGCHILD upon thread exit for the child. This is
intended to mimic certain Linux clone behaviour.
File descriptors in a shared file descriptor table are kept open until
either they are explicitly closed or all processes sharing the table
exit.
If RFPROC is set, the value returned in the parent process is the process
id of the child process; the value returned in the child is zero.
Without RFPROC, the return value is zero. Process id's range from 1 to
the maximum integer (int) value. Rfork() will sleep, if necessary, until
required process resources are available.
Fork() can be implemented as a call to rfork(RFFDG | RFPROC) but isn't
for backwards compatibility.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, rfork() returns a value of 0 to the child
process and returns the process ID of the child process to the parent
process. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned to the parent process, no
child process is created, and the global variable errno is set to
indicate the error.
ERRORS
Rfork() will fail and no child process will be created if:
[EAGAIN] The system-imposed limit on the total number of
processes under execution would be exceeded. The
limit is given by the sysctl(3) MIB variable
KERN_MAXPROC. (The limit is actually ten less than
this except for the super user).
[EAGAIN] The user is not the super user, and the system-imposed
limit on the total number of processes under execution
by a single user would be exceeded. The limit is
given by the sysctl(3) MIB variable
KERN_MAXPROCPERUID.
[EAGAIN] The user is not the super user, and the soft resource
limit corresponding to the resource parameter
RLIMIT_NOFILE would be exceeded (see getrlimit(2)).
[EINVAL] The RFPROC flag was not specified.
[EINVAL] Both the RFFDG and the RFCFDG flags were specified.
[ENOMEM] There is insufficient swap space for the new process.
SEE ALSO
fork(2), intro(2), lwp_create(2), minherit(2), vfork(2), rfork_thread(3)
HISTORY
The rfork() function call first appeared in Plan 9.
DragonFly 4.7 January 12, 1996 DragonFly 4.7