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FORK(2)                             Linux Programmer's Manual                             FORK(2)



NAME
       fork - create a child process

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>

       pid_t fork(void);

DESCRIPTION
       fork()  creates  a  new  process  by  duplicating  the  calling process.  The new process,
       referred to as the child, is an exact duplicate of the calling process, referred to as the
       parent, except for the following points:

       *  The  child  has  its  own  unique process ID, and this PID does not match the ID of any
          existing process group (setpgid(2)).

       *  The child's parent process ID is the same as the parent's process ID.

       *  The child does not inherit its parent's memory locks (mlock(2), mlockall(2)).

       *  Process resource utilizations (getrusage(2)) and CPU time counters (times(2)) are reset
          to zero in the child.

       *  The child's set of pending signals is initially empty (sigpending(2)).

       *  The child does not inherit semaphore adjustments from its parent (semop(2)).

       *  The  child does not inherit process-associated record locks from its parent (fcntl(2)).
          (On the other hand, it does inherit fcntl(2) open file description locks  and  flock(2)
          locks from its parent.)

       *  The  child  does not inherit timers from its parent (setitimer(2), alarm(2), timer_cre‐
          ate(2)).

       *  The child does not inherit outstanding asynchronous  I/O  operations  from  its  parent
          (aio_read(3), aio_write(3)), nor does it inherit any asynchronous I/O contexts from its
          parent (see io_setup(2)).

       The process attributes in the preceding list are all specified in POSIX.1-2001.  The  par‐
       ent and child also differ with respect to the following Linux-specific process attributes:

       *  The  child  does  not  inherit directory change notifications (dnotify) from its parent
          (see the description of F_NOTIFY in fcntl(2)).

       *  The prctl(2) PR_SET_PDEATHSIG setting is reset so that the child  does  not  receive  a
          signal when its parent terminates.

       *  The  default  timer  slack value is set to the parent's current timer slack value.  See
          the description of PR_SET_TIMERSLACK in prctl(2).

       *  Memory mappings that have been marked with the madvise(2) MADV_DONTFORK  flag  are  not
          inherited across a fork().

       *  The termination signal of the child is always SIGCHLD (see clone(2)).

       *  The  port  access  permission bits set by ioperm(2) are not inherited by the child; the
          child must turn on any bits that it requires using ioperm(2).

       Note the following further points:

       *  The child process is created with a single thread—the  one  that  called  fork().   The
          entire  virtual  address  space of the parent is replicated in the child, including the
          states of mutexes,  condition  variables,  and  other  pthreads  objects;  the  use  of
          pthread_atfork(3) may be helpful for dealing with problems that this can cause.

       *  The  child  inherits  copies  of  the parent's set of open file descriptors.  Each file
          descriptor in the child refers to the same open file description (see open(2))  as  the
          corresponding file descriptor in the parent.  This means that the two descriptors share
          open file status flags, current file offset, and signal-driven I/O attributes (see  the
          description of F_SETOWN and F_SETSIG in fcntl(2)).

       *  The  child  inherits  copies of the parent's set of open message queue descriptors (see
          mq_overview(7)).  Each descriptor in the child refers to the same  open  message  queue
          description  as  the  corresponding  descriptor in the parent.  This means that the two
          descriptors share the same flags (mq_flags).

       *  The child  inherits  copies  of  the  parent's  set  of  open  directory  streams  (see
          opendir(3)).   POSIX.1-2001 says that the corresponding directory streams in the parent
          and child may share the directory stream positioning; on Linux/glibc they do not.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, the PID of the child process is returned in the parent, and 0 is  returned  in
       the  child.   On  failure,  -1 is returned in the parent, no child process is created, and
       errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS
       EAGAIN fork() cannot allocate sufficient memory to copy the parent's page tables and allo‐
              cate a task structure for the child.

       EAGAIN

              A  system-imposed limit on the number of threads was encountered.  There are a num‐
              ber of limits that may trigger this error: the  RLIMIT_NPROC  soft  resource  limit
              (set via setrlimit(2)), which limits the number of processes and threads for a real
              user ID, was reached; the kernel's system-wide limit on the number of processes and
              threads,  /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max,  was  reached (see proc(5)); or the maximum
              number of PIDs, /proc/sys/kernel/pid_max, was reached (see proc(5)).

       EAGAIN The caller is operating under the SCHED_DEADLINE scheduling  policy  and  does  not
              have the reset-on-fork flag set.  See sched(7).

       ENOMEM fork() failed to allocate the necessary kernel structures because memory is tight.

       ENOSYS fork()  is  not supported on this platform (for example, hardware without a Memory-
              Management Unit).

CONFORMING TO
       SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

NOTES
       Under Linux, fork() is implemented using copy-on-write pages, so the only penalty that  it
       incurs  is the time and memory required to duplicate the parent's page tables, and to cre‐
       ate a unique task structure for the child.

       Since version 2.3.3, rather than invoking the  kernel's  fork()  system  call,  the  glibc
       fork()  wrapper  that  is  provided  as  part of the NPTL threading implementation invokes
       clone(2) with flags that provide the same effect as the traditional system call.  (A  call
       to  fork()  is  equivalent  to  a call to clone(2) specifying flags as just SIGCHLD.)  The
       glibc  wrapper  invokes   any   fork   handlers   that   have   been   established   using
       pthread_atfork(3).

EXAMPLE
       See pipe(2) and wait(2).

SEE ALSO
       clone(2),  execve(2),  exit(2),  setrlimit(2),  unshare(2),  vfork(2), wait(2), daemon(3),
       capabilities(7), credentials(7)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project.  A  description  of  the
       project,  information  about  reporting  bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
       found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                       2014-05-28                                    FORK(2)


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