Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 29 Sep 2000 23:44:42 +0200 | From | Andries Brouwer <> | Subject | Re: PIDs limited to 15 significant bits |
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On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 03:57:10PM -0400, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> > The code is old. > > There is very little reason for it, and we could change today. > > My machines regularly see 6- or 7-digit PIDs.
> Oh, the horror! > > Consider, do you like to type "kill 1234567890" more than > a simple "kill 1234"?
Hmm. I double click on the ps output and single click to paste. The number of digits does not play a role.
> What do you think of "ps -efj" on a standard 80x24 screen?
I never give such commands, but just tried:
aeb 119876 1 426 236 0 23:32 tty1 00:00:00 xterm aeb 119877 119876 119877 119877 0 23:32 pts/9 00:00:00 -bash aeb 119884 119877 119884 119877 0 23:33 pts/9 00:00:00 ps -efj
as you see, the ps program here fails to align the columns, but otherwise all is well.
> > [The patch is available. There are a few security advantages. > > There should not be any significant security advantages. > One can easily wrap/predict in a 31-bit space.
There are a few weaknesses that can be exploited using a wraparound. With 100 processes/sec that takes 497 days with a 32-bit pid and 5 minutes with a 16-bit pid.
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