Re: [PATCH 0/6] CLONE_FD: Task exit notification via file descriptor

[David Drysdale]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:42 PM, Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 04:05:29PM +0000, David Drysdale wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 1:40 AM, Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > This patch series introduces a new clone flag, CLONE_FD, which lets the caller
>> > handle child process exit notification via a file descriptor rather than
>> > SIGCHLD.  CLONE_FD makes it possible for libraries to safely launch and manage
>> > child processes on behalf of their caller, *without* taking over process-wide
>> > SIGCHLD handling (either via signal handler or signalfd).
>>
>> Hi Josh,
>>
>> From the overall description (i.e. I haven't looked at the code yet)
>> this looks very interesting.  However, it seems to cover a lot of the
>> same ground as the process descriptor feature that was added to FreeBSD
>> in 9.x/10.x:
>>   https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pdfork&sektion=2
>
> Interesting.
>
>> I think it would ideally be nice for a userspace library developer to be
>> able to do subprocess management (without SIGCHLD) in a similar way
>> across both platforms, without lots of complicated autoconf shenanigans.
>>
>> So could we look at the overlap and seeing if we can come up with
>> something that covers your requirements and also allows for something
>> that looks like FreeBSD's process descriptors?
>
> Agreed; however, I think it's reasonable to provide appropriate Linux
> system calls, and then let glibc or libbsd or similar provide the
> BSD-compatible calls on top of those.  I don't think the kernel
> interface needs to exactly match FreeBSD's, as long as it's a superset
> of the functionality.

Agreed -- if it's possible to implement equivalent process descriptor
functionality with a wrapper library, but the kernel interface is more
comprehensive and consistent with the rest of the Linux kernel, then
that's a big win.  So thanks for your work and for being willing to look
at the overlap!
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