Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:12166 comp.unix.questions:10108
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Implement a Remote Fork facility
Keywords: Fork, Process, migration, remote, a.out, core
Message-ID: <17819@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 6 Nov 88 16:54:04 GMT
References: <1777@pembina.UUCP> <2163@cuuxb.ATT.COM> <159@seibert.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 17


      It's been done.  See "The LOCUS Distributed System Architecture",
by Popek and Walker, MIT Press, 1985.  ISBN 0-262-16102-8
LOCUS is a distributed UNIX kernel developed at UCLA.  It's 4.2BSD
compatible, yet allows full distribution over a network of heterogeneous
machines.  Processes can be migrated from one similar machine to another while
running, using the migrate(II) system call.  Open files, pipes, signals, and
sockets survive migration.  Even shared file position works; the mechanism
for doing this efficiently is very clever.  A user can migrate his own tasks, 
or a background scheduler may force task migration.  Across heterogeneous 
CPUs, one can perform "exec"; an "exec" of an object program that needs a 
different kind of machine results in execution on a suitable machine elsewhere
in the network.  Very impressive.  Not clear why it never caught on.

					John Nagle
type of CPU than the one the process is running on will result in the
process