Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!amanue!oglvee!jr From: jr@oglvee.UUCP (Jim Rosenberg) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: pid rollover? Message-ID: <460@oglvee.UUCP> Date: 27 Jan 89 16:22:14 GMT Organization: Oglevee Computer Systems, Connellsville, Pa Lines: 17 Our system is an Altos 2000 running Xenix System V. The CPU is a 386, and the C compiler produces 4 as sizeof(int). However we seem to be hitting rollover of pids at 32K, implying that the kernel must be using short as the type of a pid -- at least internally. I have two questions. Why wouldn't the kernel use a true int for a pid, preventing rollover until 2147483647 or so? Surely this isn't just because someone thought it would louse up the output format of ps?? As system administrator should I be concerned about letting the pids roll over? We've had this happen several times with no apparent ill effects. I'm not concerned about the kernel -- it seems to know what to do when pids roll over. But what about all those programs using mktemp() or $$ ? Does anyone have any horror stories about applications that behaved badly after pid rollover? -- Jim Rosenberg pitt Oglevee Computer Systems >--!amanue!oglvee!jr 151 Oglevee Lane cgh Connellsville, PA 15425 #include