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Lecture Slides 08 083-Processes-exec

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12 views10 pages

Lecture Slides 08 083-Processes-exec

Uploaded by

yihuangece
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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University of Washington

Section 8: Processes
 What is a process
 Creating processes
 Fork-Exec

Fork-Exec
University of Washington

Fork-Exec
 fork-exec model:
 fork() creates a copy of the current process
 execve() replaces the current process’ code & address space with
the code for a different program
 There is a whole family of exec calls – see exec(3) and execve(2)

// Example arguments: path="/usr/bin/ls”,


// argv[0]="/usr/bin/ls”, argv[1]="-ahl", argv[2]=NULL
void fork_exec(char *path, char *argv[])
{
pid_t pid = fork();
if (pid != 0) {
printf("Parent: created a child %d\n”, pid);
} else {
printf("Child: exec-ing new program now\n");
execv(path, argv);
}
printf("This line printed by parent only!\n");
}
Fork-Exec
University of Washington

Exec-ing a new program


Stack

Very high-level diagram of what


happens when you run the
Heap command ”ls” in a Linux shell:
Data
Code: /usr/bin/bash
fork():
parent child child
Stack
Stack Stack

exec():

Heap Heap
Data Data Data
Code: /usr/bin/bash Code: /usr/bin/bash Code: /usr/bin/ls
Fork-Exec
University of Washington

execve: Loading and Running Programs


Stack bottom
Null-terminated
 int execve( env var strings
char *filename, Null-terminated
char *argv[], cmd line arg strings
char *envp[] unused
) envp[n] == NULL
 Loads and runs in current process: envp[n-1]
 Executable filename …
 With argument list argv envp[0]
argv[argc] == NULL
 And environment variable list envp
argv[argc-1]
 Env. vars: “name=value” strings …
(e.g. “PWD=/homes/iws/pjh”) argv[0]

execve does not return (unless error) Linker vars
envp
 Overwrites code, data, and stack argv
 Keeps pid, open files, a few other items argc
Stack frame for
Fork-Exec
main Stack top
University of Washington

exit: Ending a process


 void exit(int status)
 Exits a process
Status code: 0 is used for a normal exit, nonzero for abnormal exit
 atexit() registers functions to be executed upon exit

void cleanup(void) {
printf("cleaning up\n");
}

void fork6() {
atexit(cleanup);
fork();
exit(0);
}

Fork-Exec
University of Washington

Zombies
 Idea
 When process terminates, it still consumes system resources

Various tables maintained by OS
 Called a “zombie”
 A living corpse, half alive and half dead
 Reaping
 Performed by parent on terminated child
 Parent is given exit status information
 Kernel discards process
 What if parent doesn’t reap?
 If any parent terminates without reaping a child, then child will be
reaped by init process (pid == 1)
 But in long-running processes we need explicit reaping
 e.g., shells and servers

Fork-Exec
University of Washington

wait: Synchronizing with Children


 int wait(int *child_status)
 Suspends current process (i.e. the parent) until one of its children
terminates
 Return value is the pid of the child process that terminated
 On successful return, the child process is reaped
 If child_status != NULL, then the int that it points to will be set
to a status indicating why the child process terminated
 There are special macros for interpreting this status – see wait(2)

 If parent process has multiple children, wait() will return


when any of the children terminates
 waitpid() can be used to wait on a specific child process

Fork-Exec
University of Washington

wait Example
void fork_wait() {
int child_status;
pid_t child_pid;

if (fork() == 0) { HC Bye
printf("HC: hello from child\n");
} else {
child_pid = wait(&child_status); CT Bye
printf("CT: child %d has terminated\n”,
child_pid);
}
printf("Bye\n");
exit(0);
}

Fork-Exec
University of Washington

Process management summary



fork gets us two copies of the same process (but fork()
returns different values to the two processes)

execve has a new process substitute itself for the one that
called it
 Two-process program:
First fork()
 if (pid == 0) { //child code } else { //parent code }
 Two different programs:
 First fork()
 if (pid == 0) { execve() } else { //parent code }
 Now running two completely different programs

wait / waitpid used to synchronize parent/child execution
and to reap child process

Fork-Exec
University of Washington

Summary
 Processes
 At any given time, system has multiple active processes
 Only one can execute at a time, but each process appears to have total
control of the processor
 OS periodically “context switches” between active processes
 Implemented using exceptional control flow
 Process management
 fork-exec model

Fork-Exec

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