Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!necisa!boyd
From: boyd@necisa.ho.necisa.oz (Boyd Roberts)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: killing a process gone bad.
Message-ID: <1916@necisa.ho.necisa.oz>
Date: 5 Nov 90 03:21:57 GMT
References: <1990Oct25.185822.11838@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <1990Oct30.032707.1222@brian386.uucp> <1119@massey.ac.nz> <6531@titcce.cc.titech.ac.jp>
Organization: NEC Information Systems Australia Pty. Ltd.
Lines: 20

>In article <1119@massey.ac.nz>
>	GEustace@massey.ac.nz (Glen Eustace) writes:
>
>It would appear that kill doesn't lock the process table will killing
>all of the process group, they still kept replicating.
>

On a uni-processor the process table is effectively locked because
no other process can run while the kill() system call is running.
System calls only relinquish the CPU when they want to.  kill() is
not one of them.

If it's a uni-processor and they have the same process group its easy.
A multi-processor or something calling setpgrp() is another problem.
Your process spawning may vary.


Boyd Roberts			boyd@necisa.ho.necisa.oz.au

``November spawned a monster...'' - Morrissey