NetBSD-5.0.2/share/man/man9/fork1.9

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.\"	$NetBSD: fork1.9,v 1.14 2008/04/30 13:10:58 martin Exp $
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.\" Copyright (c) 1998 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
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.\" This code is derived from software contributed to The NetBSD Foundation
.\" by Jason R. Thorpe of the Numerical Aerospace Simulation Facility,
.\" NASA Ames Research Center.
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.Dd January 4, 2008
.Dt FORK1 9
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm fork1
.Nd create a new process
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/types.h
.In sys/proc.h
.Ft int
.Fn "fork1" "struct lwp *l1" "int flags" "int exitsig" "void *stack" "size_t stacksize" "void (*func)(void *)" "void *arg" "register_t *retval" "struct proc **rnewprocp"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Fn fork1
creates a new process out of the process behind
.Ar l1 ,
which is assumed to be the current lwp.
This function is used primarily to implement the
.Xr fork 2
and
.Xr vfork 2
system calls, but is versatile enough to be used as a backend for
e.g. the
.Xr __clone 2
call.
.Pp
The
.Ar flags
argument controls the semantics of the fork operation, and is made up of
the bitwise-OR of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width FORK_SHAREFILES
.It FORK_PPWAIT
The parent process will sleep until the child process successfully calls
.Xr execve 2
or exits (either by a call to
.Xr _exit 2
or abnormally).
.It FORK_SHAREVM
The child process will share the parent's virtual address space.
If this flag is not specified, the child will get a copy-on-write
snapshot of the parent's address space.
.It FORK_SHARECWD
The child process will share the parent's current directory, root directory,
and file creation mask.
.It FORK_SHAREFILES
The child process will share the parent's file descriptors.
.It FORK_SHARESIGS
The child process will share the parent's signal actions.
.It FORK_NOWAIT
The child process will at creation time be inherited by the init process.
.It FORK_CLEANFILES
The child process will not copy or share the parent's descriptors, but
rather will start out with a clean set.
.El
.Pp
A
.Ar flags
value of 0 indicates a standard fork operation.
.Pp
The
.Ar exitsig
argument controls the signal sent to the parent on child death.
If normal operation desired, SIGCHLD should be supplied.
.Pp
It is possible to specify the child userspace stack location and size
by using the
.Ar stack
and
.Ar stacksize
arguments, respectively.
Values
.Dv NULL
and 0, respectively, will give the child the default values
for the machine architecture in question.
.Pp
The arguments
.Ar func
and
.Ar arg
can be used to specify a kernel function to be called when the child process
returns instead of
.Fn child_return .
These are used for example in starting the init process and creating kernel
threads.
.Pp
The
.Ar retval
argument is provided for the use of system call stubs.
If
.Ar retval
is not NULL, it will hold the following values after successful completion
of the fork operation:
.Bl -tag -width retval[0]
.It Ar retval[0]
This will contain the pid of the child process.
.It Ar retval[1]
In the parent process, this will contain the value 0.
In the child process, this will contain 1.
.El
.Pp
User level system call stubs typically subtract 1 from
.Ar retval[1]
and bitwise-AND it with
.Ar retval[0] ,
thus returning the pid to the parent process and 0 to the child.
.Pp
If
.Ar rnewprocp
is not NULL,
.Ar *rnewprocp
will point to the newly created process upon successful completion of
the fork operation.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion of the fork operation,
.Fn fork1
returns 0.
Otherwise, the following error values are returned:
.Bl -tag -width [EAGAIN]
.It Bq Er EAGAIN
The limit on the total number of system processes would be exceeded.
.It Bq Er EAGAIN
The limit
.Dv RLIMIT_NPROC
on the total number of processes under execution by this
user id would be exceeded.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr execve 2 ,
.Xr fork 2 ,
.Xr vfork 2