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PDFORK(2)		      System Calls Manual		     PDFORK(2)

NAME
       pdfork, pdgetpid, pdkill	-- System calls	to manage process descriptors

LIBRARY
       Standard	C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include	<sys/procdesc.h>

       pid_t
       pdfork(int *fdp,	int flags);

       int
       pdgetpid(int fd,	pid_t *pidp);

       int
       pdkill(int fd, int signum);

DESCRIPTION
       Process	 descriptors  are  special  file  descriptors  that  represent
       processes, and are created using	pdfork(), a variant of fork(2),	which,
       if successful, returns a	process	descriptor in the integer  pointed  to
       by  fdp.	 Processes created via pdfork()	will not cause SIGCHLD on ter-
       mination.  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_enter(2)).

       PD_CLOEXEC
		  Set close-on-exec on process descriptor.

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

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

       The  following  system  calls also have effects specific	to process de-
       scriptors:

       fstat(2)	queries	status of a process  descriptor;  currently  only  the
       st_mode,	 st_birthtime,	st_atime, st_ctime and st_mtime	fields are de-
       fined.  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; cur-
       rently  only  POLLHUP  is  defined, and will be raised when the process
       dies.  Process state transitions	can also be monitored using  kqueue(2)
       filter EVFILT_PROCDESC; currently only NOTE_EXIT	is implemented.

       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.

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

       pdgetpid() and pdkill() return 0	on success and -1 on failure.

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

       [EINVAL]		  The signal number given to pdkill() is invalid.

       [ENOTCAPABLE]	  The process descriptor being operated	on has	insuf-
			  ficient rights (e.g.	CAP_PDKILL for pdkill()).

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

HISTORY
       The pdfork(), pdgetpid(), and pdkill() system calls first  appeared  in
       FreeBSD 9.0.

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

AUTHORS
       These functions and the capability facility were	created	by  Robert  N.
       M.     Watson	 <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>	   and	  Jonathan    Anderson
       <jonathan@FreeBSD.org> at the University	of Cambridge Computer  Labora-
       tory with support from a	grant from Google, Inc.

FreeBSD	13.2		       October 14, 2018			     PDFORK(2)

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | ERRORS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS

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