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When a process calls fork, it is deemed the parent process and the newly created process is its child. After the fork, both processes not only run the same program, but they resume execution as though both had called the system call. They can then inspect the call's return value to determine their status, child or parent, and act accordingly.
fork() is the name of the system call that the parent process uses to "divide" itself ("fork") into two identical processes. After calling fork(), the created child process is an exact copy of the parent except for the return value of the fork() call. This includes open files, register state, and all memory allocations, which includes the ...
A high-level overview of the Linux kernel's system call interface, which handles communication between its various components and the userspace. In computing, a system call (commonly abbreviated to syscall) is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a service from the operating system [a] on which it is executed.
The word "fork" has been used to mean "to divide in branches, go separate ways" as early as the 14th century. [2] In the software environment, the word evokes the fork system call, which causes a running process to split itself into two (almost) identical copies that (typically) diverge to perform different tasks.
Most Linux distributions are descended from other distributions, most being traceable back to Debian, Red Hat or Softlanding Linux System (see image right). Since most of the content of a distribution is free and open source software, ideas and software interchange freely as is useful to the individual distribution.
The fork and execve functions in glibc are examples of this. They call the lower-level fork and execve system calls, respectively. This may lead to incorrectly using the terms "system call" and "syscall" to refer to higher-level library calls rather than the similarly named system calls, which they wrap. [4] [5]
For instance, this includes Unix and Unix-like operating systems, such as GNU variants, distributions of Linux and BSD, and macOS, and compilers such as GCC and LLVM. On Unix-like systems, the interface defined by unistd.h is typically made up largely of system call wrapper functions such as fork, pipe and I/O primitives (read, write, close, etc.).
μClinux is a variation of the Linux kernel, previously maintained as a fork, that targets microcontrollers without a memory management unit (MMU). [1] It was integrated into the mainline kernel as of 2.5.46; [ 2 ] the project continues to develop patches and tools for microcontrollers.