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SubjectRe: Porting vfork()
Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Kenneth Albanowski wrote:
> > >
> > > No need to. If you use sleep_on(), the parent won't be getting any signals
> > > anyway (only sleep_on_interruptible() cares about signals).
> >
> > Of course, but is that a good thing? The parent will be unkillable until
> > the child does something.
>
> Yes. That's basically how vfork() works.
>
> You could make it a special kind of killable - where you can _only_ kill
> it (ie only fatal signals will be serviced), and that would work. I
> wouldn't do that until people actually start to complain. It's not a
> security issue, as the parent _can_ be killed - you just have to kill the
> child first.
>
> Linus
>
> -
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You mean you just have to kill _all_ the children, and their
children _in order_. This seems like a big security hazard to
me.... Vfork bombs could become quite difficult to stop.... e.g.

while(vfork());

you'd have to start killing at the high end (pid-wise), but the
processes are _created_ at the high end, so you would fail.

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David Feuer
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dfeuer@binx.mbhs.edu
Open Source: Think locally; act globally.

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