FORK(2) 		   Linux Programmers Manual		      FORK(2)



NAME
       fork - create a child process

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       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  childs  parent  process ID is the same as the parents process
	  ID.

       *  The child does not inherit  its  parents  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 childs set of pending  signals  is  initially  empty  (sigpend
	  ing(2)).

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

       *  The child does not inherit record locks from its parent  (fcntl(2)).

       *  The  child  does  not  inherit timers from its parent (setitimer(2),
	  alarm(2), timer_create(3)).

       *  The child does not inherit outstanding asynchronous  I/O  operations
	  from its parent (aio_read(3), aio_write(3)).

       The  process  attributes  in  the  preceding  list are all specified in
       POSIX.1-2001.  The parent 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.

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

       *  The  termination  signal  of	the  child  is	always	SIGCHLD   (see
	  clone(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 parents set of open file descrip
	  tors.  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 parents 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 correspond
	  ing  descriptor  in the parent.  This means that the two descriptors
	  share the same flags (mq_flags).

       *  The child inherits copies of the  parents  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 parents
	      page tables and allocate a task structure for the child.

       EAGAIN It was not possible to create a new process because the callers
	      RLIMIT_NPROC  resource  limit  was  encountered.	To exceed this
	      limit, the process must have either  the	CAP_SYS_ADMIN  or  the
	      CAP_SYS_RESOURCE capability.

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

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 dupli
       cate the parents page tables, and to create a  unique  task  structure
       for the child.

       Since  version  2.3.3,  rather than invoking the kernels 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.  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), setrlimit(2), unshare(2), vfork(2), wait(2), capa
       bilities(7), credentials(7)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.05 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of	the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux				  2008-04-22			       FORK(2)