Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!madd
From: madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: sharing text on exec
Message-ID: <20825@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 22 Mar 88 18:49:29 GMT
References: <1669@louie.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost)
Followup-To: comp.os.minix
Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 20

In article <1669@louie.udel.EDU> Leisner.Henr@xerox.com (Marty) writes:
>I'm looking into a mechanism for sharing text on exec on Minix.
>
>It's relatively straightforward to save the inode/device for each execed file.
>Except short of leaving the file open (i.e. one file descriptor per execed
>process) how do you prohibit the file system from writing over that file?
>
>Any other good ways to uniquely identify files and be able to correctly identify
>whether the previously execed file is inconsistent with what is currently on
>disk?

One obvious way used on some systems is to use the timestamp in the
executable, providing that it's there.  This will work even if the
original is overwritten while the old executable is running.

Does MINIX put a timestamp in the executable?  If not, an alternative
method would be to build a timestamp from the modify date of the file.

jim frost
madd@bu-it.bu.edu